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Improving Readiness to Learn

March 27, 2012 por Aimee Verdisco 1 Comentario


Could it be that we are witnessing two opposing forces in attempts to improve education worldwide? In the quest for higher quality education, governments are investing more in teachers, technology, and training. Yet, as this happens, kids are less ready to learn than ever before.

Girth around the world is increasing. “Globesity,” the term given to this global epidemic of overweight and obesity by the World Health Organization, is rapidly becoming a major health problem. It is associated with upsurges in diabetes and heart disease, with direct and indirect costs extracting an exorbitant price. In the United States direct and indirect costs associated with obesity are around US$150 billion a year, or almost three times the GDP of Bolivia, where I currently reside.

The problem is not limited to adults. Kids everywhere are getting fatter, and few countries possess the fiscal possibilities to invest an ever growing share of their GDPs in health issues that many experts deem to be largely preventable (Youfa and Lobstein, 2006).

From the 1970s to the present, the prevalence of overweight and obesity in school-age children has doubled, even tripled, in countries as diverse Brazil, Chile, Finland, Greece and Japan. Half of all children were projected to be overweight or obese in North and South America by the year 2010. Data from the World Health Organization give Argentina the dubious honor of leading Latin America in the rate of obesity in children under five years: 7.3%.

These trends transcend all socioeconomic levels and do not disappear as children mature into adults. Estimates suggest that half of obese children and 70% of obese adolescents will remain obese in adulthood. This last figure climbs to 80% if at least one parent is also obese (Whitaker et al., 1997). As adults, these teens have lower levels of education and lower wages than their healthier peers. In adults, obesity may be associated with marked decreases in brain volume in areas related to attention, memory and cognition (see Burkhalter and Hillman, 2011).

Nutrition bears a strong association with brain and childhood development, and the building blocks of good nutrition are essential for improving cognition and academics. Stunting (measured by height-for-age of less than -2 standard deviations) in early childhood is caused by poor nutrition rather than by genetic differences and is associated with irreversible cognitive damage. New (albeit limited) data point to similar problems associated with over consumption. Obese children and adolescents tend to perform worse than their peers of normal weight on cognitive tests. In addition, being obese in kindergarten appears to lead to declining academic performance throughout school, with girls at particular risk. Girls of normal weight at kindergarten, who are classified as obese by third grade, show significantly declines in test scores. Compared to their normal-weight peers, obese teenage girls are 50% more likely to repeat a grade than their normal weight peers; obese teenage boys are twice as likely to drop out of school (Ibid).

Part of the problem lies with changing nutritional patterns of children. Average daily servings of fruit, vegetables and fibers are falling below recommended guidelines, as saturated fats and sodium are being consumed in excess. This trend is universal. Diets in developing countries, particularly in urban areas, increasingly resemble those found in Europe and North America. Yet declines in moderate to vigorous activity are also at fault. Data reported for the US find that 8-18 year olds spend over 5 hours a day in front of a screen.

Solutions to large-scale problems are never simple and often difficult to implement. But, as this blog as argued since its first post, the data are clear with regard to importance of physical activity. There is a clear link between physical and mental fitness. Absent explicit attention to this link, no amount of technology or training or any other reform-oriented input is likely to produce the improvements in quality that societies around the world demand of their education systems.

Recommended lectures:

Kelishadi, Roya (2007). “Childhood Overweight, Obesity, and the Metabolic Syndrome in Developing Countries.” Epidemiologic Reviews. 27:62-76. On the web at: http://epirev.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/1/.

World Health Organization. WHO Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition. On the web at: http://www.who.int/nutgrowthdb/en/.


Archivado bajoEnglish Etiquetado con:#Education, child obesity, cognitive skills, cognitive tests, early childhood development, kinder-garten, learning, nutrition, teachers, technology

Aimee Verdisco

Aimee Verdisco es una especialista líder en la División de Educación, ubicada en la Representación del Banco en Brasil. En este cargo, se responsabiliza por los proyectos de educación en el país. También brinda asistencia técnica a varios otros proyectos en la Región, sobre todo los con componentes fuertes de educación inicial. Ha trabajado en operaciones de préstamo en educación en casi todos los países de la Región y en investigaciones aplicadas en la medición de desarrollo infantil y la política educativa. Antes de entrar el en Banco, ocupó diversos cargos con la Universidad Estatal de Louisiana, las Naciones Unidas, y un proyecto de capacitación financiado por la USAID. Tiene un Doctorado en Políticas Públicas de la Universidad Estatal de Nueva York en Buffalo, una Maestría en Desarrollo Internacional del Monterey Institute of International Studies y una Licenciatura en lenguaje de la Universidad Estatal de Nueva York en Binghamton. También, fue recipiente de la beca de la Fulbright en Uruguay.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Venkata dice

    April 5, 2012 at 2:30 am

    The practical problem is with the educational system where many of the institutions in India especially have become the production factories. The aim is to constrain the child spend even up to 18 hours or so and ensure they somehow get highest marks for publicity sake. Institutions hardly pay attention to the over all growth of the child be it sports, personality development, or trend updates. In case of boarding schools the nutritional value of food is highly unreasonable except for very top end institutions that collect considerable fee slabs.

    The other problem is there is no faculty development or constructive focus on teacher training across all levels and streams of education.

    Perfunctory infrastructure that doesn’t respond to the practical needs of people, travel time which kills the valuable time of students and other economic issues are victimizing the educational system further.

    Obesity or malnutrition are hardly the matters of importance in Indian educational system in the face of above facts.
    Venkata
    http://blog.blogbee.in

    Reply

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Enfoque Educación

"Enfoque Educación" es el blog de la División de Educación del BID, un espacio donde nuestros especialistas y autores invitados comparten sus reflexiones, experiencias y conocimientos para promover discusiones informadas sobre temas educativos entre formuladores de política, expertos, maestros, y padres. Nuestra meta: proveer ideas para que las políticas publicas puedan garantizar una enseñanza efectiva y de calidad para todos los niños y jóvenes de América Latina y el Caribe.

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