Change Schools and Parenting that Contribute to Children's Ill Health Relationship Expert Author Dr. Molly Barrow

Combine poverty, readily available poor choices of sugar snacks and drinks at schools and recreation areas, the sedentary lifestyle of television and computer entertained children, and high carb/high fat diets at home with the female body and problems quickly arise. The younger a child is when they begin to lose muscle and replace it with fat, the harder it becomes to stop the tide of obesity in middle school and high school. The potential of these children is squashed out with shame and deep seated emotional scarring by stigmatization and peer ostracising. According to a recent study from The University of Texas at Austin, obese girls are half as likely to attend college as non-obese girls.(Crosnoe, R. 2007)
Certainly, the ability to change people's bad habits and lives as witnessed in the popular television show "The Biggest Loser" is available to a few lucky contestants. If our school systems must step back from the importance of year after year of memorizing important data that is now available in seconds on the computer and switch their curriculum. Introduce health classes that actually produce hard bodied, drug free and alcohol free young people, parenting classes that produce skilled parents with knowledge of my "Compassionate Parenting" based on child development markers, and practical money savvy business minds. Make these mandatory and prerequisites to the important but advanced classes like trigonometry, chemistry and Spanish that few students need or use in their future. I am proposing that the schools spend time creating strong healthy bodies with organic nutrition, stretching, dance, cardio and weight lifting every day and watch their discipline problems, drop out rates, drug and alcohol use, and boredom levels plummet. Children left to sit in rows for seven hours a day fed sugar and fake wheat food are dying, not thriving.

Dr. Molly Barrow holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is the author of the new book, “Matchlines: A Revolutionary New Way of Looking at Relationships and Making the Right Choices in Love,” ISBN 159507158X. Introducing the new relationship compatibility test Match Lines Systems for Successful Relationships by psychology expert Dr. Molly Barrow on her official website: http://www.DrMollyBarrow.com.She is an authority on relationship and psychological topics; a member of the American Psychological Association, Screen Actors Guild, and Author’s Guild and is a licensed mental health counselor. Dr. Molly has appeared as an expert in the film, My Suicide, documentaries Ready to Explode and KTLA Impact, NBC news, PBS In Focus, WBZT talk radio and in O Magazine, Psychology Today, Newsday, The Nest, MSN.com, Yahoo, Match.com, N Magazine, Women’s Health, Harvard Business School, Women’s World and Shrink About This columnist for Scripps newspapers, Hitched Magazine and Menstuff. Dr. Molly Barrow Radio: http://www.blogtalkradio.com Love and healthy relationship advice for pre-marital, marriage, dating and business relationships.


Obese Girls Less Likely to
Attend College, Research Shows
July 23, 2007

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AUSTIN, Texas—Obese girls are half as likely to attend college as non-obese girls, according to a new study from The University of Texas at Austin.

The study also shows obese girls are even less likely to enter college if they attend a high school where obesity is relatively uncommon. The findings appear in the July issue of the journal Sociology of Education.

The study tracked nearly 11,000 American adolescents, using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

"Obesity has been identified as a serious public health issue, but these results indicate the harmful effects extend far beyond physical health," said Robert Crosnoe, author of the study and a sociologist at the university.

Crosnoe suggests a number of mental health and behavioral issues seem to play a significant role in keeping obese girls from enrolling in college. The study found obese girls were more likely to consider committing suicide, use alcohol and marijuana and have negative self-images.

The disconnect between obesity and college enrollment was more pronounced among non-whites and among girls whose parents did not graduate from college. Obese boys did not differ from their non-obese peers in college enrollment.

"That girls are far more vulnerable to the non-health risks of obesity reinforces the notion that body image is more important to girls' self-concept and that social norms have greater effects on the education of girls than boys," Crosnoe noted.

For more information contact: Robert Crosnoe, associate professor, Department of Sociology and Population Research Center, 512-232-6340; Tracy Mueller, public affairs specialist, College of Liberal Arts, 512-471-2404.