If you can get a child of any weight more fit, you stand a good
chance of improving that child’s academic performance, Wood
County researchers have proven in a West Virginia’s first
serious research on the subject. By KATE LONG | Feb. 18, 2012 |
Charleston Gazette| PARKERSBURG — In 2005, Wood County school
nurse Karen Northrup wanted to show that a child performs better
academically if that child is physically fit. “There was an easy
way to do that: compare fifth-graders’ scores on the FITNESSGRAM
and their BMI with their academic scores on the WESTEST
standardized achievement test, to see how they correlate,” she
said. The FITNESSGRAM is a yearly test of each child’s physical
fitness. Body mass index is measure of fat calculated from a
person’s weight and height. Northrup joined forces with Dick
Wittberg, Mid Ohio Valley Health Department director and Lesley
Cottrell, a West Virginia University pediatric researcher. Seven
years later, they have published four major research papers full
of hard data, with thr