Experts believe that there are other influential factors at play in determining an obese child’s overall well-being and their academic performance.
"Obesity does not prevent kids from doing math, but obesity develops in families where there may be less oversight, less education, fewer resources," said Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale Prevention Center.
Dr. Jennifer Cross, a pediatrician at the Komansky Center for Children’s Health believes that stress is a highly impactful factor in obese children.
"If obesity causes a child to feel chronically stressed (i.e. bullying, low self-esteem, etc.), that could lead to differences in the brain," Cross explained.
When determining the exact correlation between weight and cognition, Dr. Katz believes that it is all interrelated.
"…we certainly can say that obesity affects everything from self-esteem to social standing to mood and even hormonal balance, so the likelihood that there would be a whole cascade of effects between weight and math test scores is very high," said Katz.
