15 Mar Obesity Reporting By Schools Did Not Improve Students’ BMI
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Michele Leardo
Michele Leardo
Assistant Director
Institute for Education & Social Policy
New York University
New York, NY 10012
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: US school districts increasingly distribute annual fitness and body mass index (BMI) “report cards” to students and parents. Such personalized informational interventions have appeal in economics because they can inform parents about their children’s obesity status at relatively low costs. Awareness of the weight status can lead to behavioral responses that can improve health. New York City public schools adopted Fitnessgram in 2007-2008, reporting each student’s BMI alongside categorical BMI designations.
We examined how being classified as “overweight” for the previous academic year affected the students’ subsequent BMI and weight. Specifically, we compared female students whose BMI was close to their age-specific cutoff for being considered overweight with those whose BMI narrowly put them in the “healthy” category. We find that being labeled overweight had no beneficial effects on students’ subsequent BMI and weight.
MedicalResearch.com: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Response: Overweight reporting itself may not be an effective tool to reduce obesity absent additional supportive services. Unfortunately, our data do not reveal to what extent the BMI report cards were actually delivered to and read by the parents. How information is delivered and processed is crucial in these informational interventions.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Response: Future research might consider how the report cards should be delivered to achieve desired outcomes. Would electronic distribution of BMI report cards yield comparably small impacts? Would multiple reminders help address the significance of the issue? How much do the contents of the report cards matter?
MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Response: In conjunction with NYC Department of Education, we are in fact planning to run a randomized control trial examining different methods of delivery to increase effectiveness of the report cards.
MedicalResearch.com: Thank you for your contribution to the MedicalResearch.com community.
Citation:
Douglas Almond, Ajin Lee, and Amy Ellen Schwartz
Impacts of classifying New York City students as overweight
PNAS 2016 ; published ahead of print March 14, 2016, doi:10.1073/pnas.1518443113
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Michele Leardo (2016). Obesity Reporting By Schools Did Not Improve Students’ BMI MedicalResearch.com
Last Updated on March 15, 2016 by Marie Benz MD FAAD