The Effect of Obesity on Children’s Educational Attainment: The Korean Case

1. The Effect of Obesity on Children’s Educational Attainment: The Korean Case Kwanghyun Lee (Busan National University of Education) Yongjae Kwon (Kookmin University)

2. Road Map • Background & Motivation of Research • Literature Review • Data and Methodology • Empirical Results • Summary and Conclusion

3. Background • Obesity among children is on the increase in Korea. <Proportion of obese students according to IBW> • In response to this problem, special act on Children’s food safety management was enacted in 2009.

4. Background • An amendment to Special Act on Children’s Food Safety Management (effective from January 1st 2010) • Setting standards for nutritional contents of high calorie and poor-nutritive foods (Article 3) Source: Korea Food and Drug Administration

5. Motivation of Research • Despite the urgency of the matter, research measuring the effects of obesity on students’ lives and their academic achievement were rare in South Korea.

6. Research Question • How are the relative weight statuses of children related to variables such as gender, geographic region, parental education, eating habit, and physical activity? • Are the differences above statistically significant? • Does the relative weight statuses have significant relationship with children’s academic achievement?

7. Literature Review • Datar & Sturm(2006) • Moving from non-overweight to overweight between Kindergarten entry and end of third grade was significantly associated with reductions in test scores, teacher ratings of social-behavioral outcomes and approaches to learning among female students. • Sabia(2007) • Significant negative relationship between BMI and GPA was found in white female aged 14-17 while the relationship was not convincing enough in nonwhite males and females. • Kaestner & Grossman(2009) • Children who are overweight or obese have achievement scores that are about the same as children with average weight.

8. Data & Methodology • Dataset from ‘analysis on the actual status and the level of Korean schools: A study on elementary schools’ (Korea Education Development Institute, 2011) were used for this study. • Data were collected by questionnaires from parents, students, teachers, and school administrators. (Students’ weight and height were asked for the first time.) • About 12,000 6th grade students, enrolled in elementary schools, were sampled.

9. Data & Methodology • The body mass index(BMI) is calculated according to Korean standard. <Cut-off points for BMI: Republic of Korea> * Cut-off points were set by Center for Disease Control and Korean Pediatric Society.

10. Relative Weight Status: Gender & Geographical Region *: p<0.05, **: p<0.01, ***: p<0.001

11. Relative Weight Status: Parental Education Father’s education Mother’s education *: p<0.05, **: p<0.01, ***: p<0.001

12. Relative Weight Status: Self-esteem & Depression <Self-esteem> <Depression> *: p<0.05, **: p<0.01, ***: p<0.001

13. Relative Weight Status: Bullying *: p<0.05, **: p<0.01, ***: p<0.001

14. HLM results for Reading, Math, Science Scores #: p<0.10, *: p<0.05, **: p<0.01, ***: p<0.001

15. HLM results controlling for gender interaction terms #: p<0.10, *: p<0.05, **: p<0.01, ***: p<0.001

16. Summary and Conclusion • Obese female and male students tended to show lower academic achievement. • In case of male, overweight students showed better academic performance compared to normal and obese students. However, this tendency did not appear in female students. • HLM results demonstrated that obese students showed significantly lower academic performance compared to other students after explanatory variables such as family background, psychological variables, and school/teacher variables were controlled.