think on this.

Fat kids everywhere, rejoice! There’s no link between childhood obesity and junk food sold in schools, a new study has found.

Cities all over the country have been busy banning the sale of sweet and salty snacks in public schools in a bid to fight childhood obesity (thanks, Mrs. Obama). But a new study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University suggests that the strategy may be ineffective,The New York Times reports. The research appears in the January issue of the journalSociology of Education. 

 

Researchers tracked the body mass indexes of 19,450 students from fifth through eighth grade. They found that 59 percent of fifth-graders attended a school where candy bars, chips and/or soft drinks — so called “competitive foods” — were sold. That number had risen to 86 percent by eighth grade.

Scientists compared children’s weight in schools where junk food was sold and in schools where it was banned. They also evaluated eighth-graders who moved into schools that sold junk food with those who did not, and children who never attended a school that sold unhealthy snacks with those who did. Finally, they compared children who always attended schools with snacks with those who moved out of such schools.

No matter how they sliced the data, they could find no correlation at all between obesity and attending a school where candy and junk food were sold. The study also found that “the relationship between competitive foods and weight gain did not vary significantly by gender, race/ethnicity or family socioeconomic status.”