By NPR
Published: July 28, 2010
Childhood obesity isn't just about health, says a new study from the University of Michigan that has tracked the long-term social and economic consequences of obesity.
"We found that those people who were persistently overweight were more likely to not have gone on to have any further education beyond their high school [diploma]; to be receiving welfare or unemployment compensation at age 40 and to have no current partner," study author Philippa Clarke told NPR.
Why is that? Kelly Brownell of Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity points to discrimination and teasing as two likely culprits. "Teasing that comes directly from teachers in some cases, certainly from peers and even sometimes from their families," he told NPR. "This gets internalized so overweight children feel inferior, feel like there's something defective with themselves and therefore they tend not to aspire. This isn't true in all cases, but a lot of them tend not to aspire to such heights because they don't believe they deserve it."
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