Children who are above a ‘healthy’ weight (medically classified as a BMI of over 25kg/m2) tend to do less well at school than their ‘healthy’ weight peers. Studies which followed children up over time found those who were overweight or obese tended to do less well, particularly for maths. This difference was mainly found in girls, and tended to emerge in the teenage years.

Various ideas have been suggested to explain this relationship, ranging from health-related absences, to the impact of size-related bullying, to the unconscious bias of teachers. However, quantitative evidence to support these explanations is inconsistent, making it hard to draw clear conclusions. Surprisingly, there have been very few qualitative studies that ask young people, or their teachers, their views on this issue.

We want to explore if, how and why being above a ‘healthy’ weight affects people’s experiences of school and their educational performance. To do this, we want to interview young people (aged 11-16 years) and young adults (from the ALSPAC cohort, aged ≈28 years) who are/were above a ‘healthy weight’ in adolescence.

We will recruit young people (11-16 years) from community-based weight management services in Bristol and the surrounding areas. This will allow us to explore the views of young people currently in school.

However, we also want to understand how body size and weight might affect education beyond secondary-school level and its potential longer-term impact on young people as they enter the work environment. For this reason, we would also like to invite ALSPAC participants who were above a ‘healthy’ weight in adolescence (11-16 years) to take part in interviews. As ALSPAC participants are now in their late twenties, they will be able to reflect on their entire educational ‘career’, as well as describing if and how it impacted their employment and experience of the workplace.