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Efforts to increase physical activity among children during school hours in response to the obesity epidemic have been slowed because of concern that the transfer of time spent on academic curriculum to physical education might affect academic achievement adversely. To examine the relation between scholastic achievement and weight status, investigators used objective annual school data to compare 6th and 7th graders at a public school in Philadelphia; 406 students were not overweight (body-mass index percentile, <85), 85 were at risk for overweight (BMI percentile, 85–94), and 58 were overweight (BMI percentile, ≥95).
Nonoverweight students had a significantly higher mean grade-point average than overweight students (3.45 vs. 3.06) and signi…