Is your child’s school an obesity risk?

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(Caroline Fitzpatrick/ The Conversation) — Child obesity rates are skyrocketing globally. Young children spend the lion’s share of their time in school, consuming a large portion of their daily calories there and developing lifelong eating habits and food preferences with their peers.

Do the schools attended by children influence their weight? As a child development researcher interested in child education, health and poverty, I recently had the unique opportunity to work with epidemiologist Tracie Barnett to examine this question.

Our resulting study, [conducted in Quebec and] published in the International Journal of Obesity, found that schools with the unhealthiest food environments were more likely to be located in disadvantaged communities.

We also found children between the ages of 10 and 12 who attended schools with lower-quality food environments had higher amounts of central body fat (or “central adiposity” in technical terms) after two years than children attending healthier schools.

Central body fat is fatty tissue that is stored around the waist and abdomen. It poses a greater risk to long-term health than fat stored elsewhere on the body. (…)

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