The relationship between overweight and academic performance, life satisfaction and school life. (May 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lopez-Agudo, Luis Alejandro; Marcenaro-Gutierrez, Oscar David
• Is Part Of: Food policy. Volume 101(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-05
• Subjects: Body mass index -- Academic achievement -- Satisfaction with life -- Health status -- Bullying; I20 -- I21 -- I28; Food supply -- Periodicals; Food security -- Periodicals; Food -- Quality -- Periodicals; Food Supply -- Periodicals; Alimentation -- Périodiques; Electronic journals; 338.1905
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2021.102077
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0306-9192

Abstract

Highlights: We use PISA 2018 data on adolescents for nine countries. Overweight students do not perform differently compared to normal-weight students. Overweight students may be less satisfied with life and their health status. Overweight students have a poorer body image. Overweight students have higher likelihood of suffering isolation and bullying. Abstract: We explore the relationship between overweight and adolescents' academic performance and other non-academic outputs, such as life satisfaction and health status, body image, friendships, sense of belonging to school, being bullied and attitudes towards bullying. For this purpose, we employ data on 15-year-old students from PISA 2018 for nine countries, using regression discontinuity analysis around the body mass index overweight cut-off. Our results show that overweight students do not seem to perform differently compared with normal-weight students, but may be less satisfied with life and their health status, have a poorer body image and a higher likelihood of suffering social isolation and being bullied. Regarding students' sense of belonging to school, results are quite mixed and depend on the country. Surprisingly, overweight students seem to be less empathic with students who suffer from bullying than normal-weight students, even though they are more likely to be bullied themselves.