Kids gain more weight when school's out

updated 6:12 p.m. ET Feb. 28, 2007

INDIANAPOLIS - The nation’s schools — under fire for unhealthy school lunches, well-stocked vending machines and phys-ed cuts — may actually do a better job than parents in keeping children fit and trim.

A study found that 5- and 6-year-olds gained more weight over the summer than during the school year, casting doubt on the assumption that kids are more active during summer vacation.

The findings don’t reveal what’s behind the out-of-school weight gain, but the researchers speculate it’s because the summer months lack the structure of the school year with all its activities and daily comings and goings.

It's summer vacation
Doug Downey, an Ohio State University sociologist who co-authored the study, said that for many youngsters, the lazy days of summer may offer plenty of free time to eat snacks and lounge about watching TV or playing video games.

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He said the study seems to point to the need for parents to be more involved, as well as raising the idea of a longer school year and more after-school programs to keep children active.

And schools should continue their efforts to promote good health, he said.

“Trying to improve the quality of school lunches, getting the soda machines out of schools — those are still good approaches. But clearly the source of children’s obesity problems lie outside of the school,” Downey said.

BMIs climb during break
For the study, Indiana University and Ohio State researchers studied the growth rates of the body-mass indexes of 5,380 kindergartners and first-graders. The data came from a National Center for Education Statistics survey that ran from fall 1998 to spring 2000 in 310 schools across the country.

The university sociologists discovered that the youngsters’ BMIs increased on average more than twice as much during summer break compared with the school year. That increase was even greater among black and Hispanic students and kids who were overweight at the start of kindergarten.

Once kids were back in school, however, the monthly growth rate of their BMIs fell, and the growth rate gap between the overall population and the minority and overweight groups shrank, the researchers found.

The study will appear in the April issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Betsy A. Keller, a professor of exercise and sport sciences at Ithaca College in New York, said the pattern seen in the study’s snapshot of the kids’ kindergarten year, summer break and first grade is “irregular” and does not mesh with kids’ normal growth in height and weight.

Keller said it clearly points to a summer gain in fat mass, although she said data from later school years is needed to see if that trend continues.

Overall, she said the findings point to the need for parents to become actively involved in encouraging their kids to develop healthy habits even as the push continues for schools to focus more on those same goals.

“The big question in my mind is what are the parents doing with these kids during the summer? Unless they’re paying attention to their child’s level of activity and diet, with each passing summer they’re just adding to the risk of them becoming overweight,” she said.

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