Easy Way To Lose Weight

A negative self-image often causes obese girls to skip going to college.

In fact, they skip college twice as often as normal weight girls. The rate is even higher for non-whites, for obese girls whose parents didn’t go to college, and for heavy girls who attend high schools where obesity is uncommon.

As published in the July 2007 issue of Sociology of Education, a new study from The University of Texas at Austin followed almost 11,000 American teenagers to find out how obesity affects college enrollment.

The girls’ problems appeared to be rooted in a negative self-image.

That’s something I blogged about previously in “Image Is Everything.” But in that post, I talked about how a negative self-image can cause you to fail on your diet.

Here The Consequences Are Even More Serious

The researchers discovered that obese girls are more likely to consider suicide, use alcohol and drugs, fail in school, and be absent from school without permission.

However, obese girls who go to high school with a lot of overweight kids have normal rates of college enrollment.

So do obese boys, no matter where they go to high school.

It seems that obesity has a greater negative effect on girls — probably because body image is more important to a girl’s self-concept. And girls are judged more harshly than boys when it comes to weight.

So if they’re in a school where they stand out because of their weight, they’re more likely to be socially isolated.

The Researchers Tested Solutions To This Problem

They found that obese girls do better if they join in school activities, have close relationships with their parents or teachers, or even find one good friend they can depend on.

I think this study emphasizes how important it is to treat obesity as more than just a number on a scale.

For obese kids, especially girls, we need to make sure they’re not socially isolated. And to build their self-esteem so they understand how truly valuable they are.

Technorati Tags: obesity, college enrollment, self-concept, self-image, self-esteem

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