However, the same relationship cannot be said for obese and non-obese boys. According to the Crosnoe study, a particular weight for boys is no indicator as to whether they will or will not attend college.

Crosnoe studied about 11,000 adolescents in the United States from 128 schools. His research study was a part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a comprehensive study of high school students.

His results, which have been written up in the July issue of the journal Sociology of Education, show that obesity in girls leads to mental problems, along with already known physical problems.

One of the problems is the trend for obese girls not to perform as well in high school (as non-obese girls) because of problems relating to being overweight. Consequently, they are about 50% less likely to attend college than girls that are not overweight.

Crosnoe says that children often personalize negative comments from other people. Obese girls are often teased by other children and treated differently by adults. Consequently, Crosnoe states in a Time magazine article, "They are just unhappy at school, and it does things to them in the present that have long term consequences."

Obesity in high school boys does not seem to affect their tendency to attend or not attend college. Crosnoe holds that societal norms are less confining for boys, giving them less mental concerns about their weight, and not affecting them when considering their educational future.

The social consequences for being obese in girls run across all sectors of society. Crosnoe states that it is wide spread in all racial groups, along with all socio-economic and ethnic groups.

Crosnoe also found that obese girls do better in high school if they participate more in social clubs and school activities, have close friends and family members, and get involved in other activities that keep them less isolated from society.

Robert Crosnoe talks about the effects of obesity and other problems on the educational upbringing of children in his soon to be released book “Fitting In, Standing Out”.

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