Obesity and attendance

In the first study of how weight may affect school attendance, researchers have found that overweight children are at greater risk of school absenteeism than their normal-weight peers. The study found that overweight children were absent on average 20 percent more than their normal-weight peers. The study builds on others that show that the medical and psychosocial consequences of being overweight are numerous and still being discovered. The disadvantages that arise from missing school such as increased drug use, increased rates of pregnancy and poor academic performance have been previously documented. Meanwhile, the rate of childhood obesity has tripled in the United States during the past 25 years.