Boys with overweight status lagged behind girls with overweight status in reading: evidence from mendelian randomization

Abstract

Objectives: We investigated the relationship between childhood weight status and academic achievement across sexes and different school subjects in Norway.

Study design and setting: We used data from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), which includes genetic data (N = 13,648, 8-year-old children). We employed within-family mendelian randomization, using a body mass index (BMI) polygenic risk score as an instrument to address unobserved heterogeneity.

Results: Contrary to most previous findings, we observed that overweight status (including obesity) has more detrimental effects on reading achievement in boys than in girls; the test scores of boys with overweight were about a standard deviation lower than those of normal weight boys, and the negative effects on reading achievement became stronger in the later grade.

Conclusion: Previous obesity prevention studies have mainly targeted girls, based on the assumption that the obesity penalty is greater for girls. Our findings highlight that particular attention to boys with overweight may help reduce the existing gender gap in academic achievement.

Keywords: Academic achievement; Childhood obesity; Instrumental variable analysis; Mendelian randomization; MoBa; Polygenic risk scores.