It turns out that high school really can form IT
New research suggests that certain experiences of adolescent learning can have a sustainable impact on waist lines.
“There have been decades of research linking the ranks that people gain with long -term health and well -being, but there is a whole educational process that goes to gain those degrees that are facilitated by high schools and encouraged by parents,” said study author Lead Michelle Frisco, a professor of sociology at Penn State University.
“To really understand why education is important for weight and other health results, my colleagues and I realized that we have to take a step back and better understand how the educational process forms health.”
Study – recently published in the journal Social Science & Medicine – identified three major high school factors associated with the healthiest weight of high life.
Students attending private high schools or schools with more socio-economic resources were more likely to maintain a healthier weight when they were middle-aged.
Frisco believes that this early advantage can be due to the way these schools – and the families who pay for them – encourage healthy diet and lifestyle choices.
“Social groups affect health behaviors and lifestyle, and this process starts very early in life. Starts with families and continues at school,” Frisco said.
Making the most advanced classes during high school was also associated with better weight results later in life.
Finally, students who were known or socially skilled in high school tend to have healthier weights decades later.
These associations remained important even as they calculated factors such as winning a college diploma or attending selective colleges.
The effects were particularly pronounced among women – for whom Frisco said it made sense, given that women usually feel more pressure to be thin.
It is evident that researchers used data on people in their 50s, who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s – when the overweight epidemic just started.
“The study sample attended high school when only 5% of students had overweight, a percentage that had quadrupled over 4 decades,” the researchers writes.
The World Health Organization officially declared overweight a global epidemic in 1997, stressing that the norms had tripled since 1975 – that is when experts believe the epidemic began.
The persistence of the overweight crisis has many experts pointing finger at lifestyle factors, such as increasing the consumption of ultra -processed foods and a decrease in physical activity.
This new study shows that – when it comes to having a healthy BMI – the correct “programming” should start early.
“Studies like ours are important to think about how school programs and policies can help improve long -term health and well -being,” Frisco said.
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