Differences by School Location in Summer and School Monthly Weight Change: Findings from a Nationally Representative Sample

Objectives: To examine changes in accelerations of Body Mass Index (BMI), age-and-sex specific body mass index (zBMI), and 95th percentile of BMI (%BMIp95) during the summer months and school year by school location designation (i.e., urban, suburban, exurban). This study utilized the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 2010–2011. Methods: Of the 18,174 children in the ECLS-K:2011 dataset, I restricted participants to those with at least two consecutive measures that occurred August/September or April/May. Mixed-effect regression analyses estimated differences in monthly change in BMI, zBMI, and %BMIp95 between the summer and school year while accounting for the ECLS-K complex sampling design. Models also examined differences in the magnitude of BMI, zBMI, and %BMIp95 change between the summer and school year by school location. Post-hoc Benjamini–Hochberg (BH) procedure set at 10% false discovery was incorporated to account for multiple comparisons. Results: A total of 1549 children (48% female, 42% White) had at least two consecutive measures that occurred in August/September or April/May. Among all locale classifications (i.e., urban, suburban, and exurban), children from high-income households comprised the largest proportions for each group (31%, 39%, and 37%), respectively. Among urban and suburban locations, Hispanic children comprised the largest proportions for both groups (43% and 44%), respectively. Among exurban locale classifications, White children comprised the largest proportion of children (60%). Children from suburban and exurban schools experienced significantly less accelerations in monthly zBMI gain when compared to their urban counterparts −0.038 (95CI = −0.071, −0.004) and −0.045 (95CI = −0.083, −0.007), respectively. Children from exurban schools experienced significantly less acceleration in monthly %BMIp95 during the summer months when compared to the school year −0.004 (95CI = −0.007, 0.000). Conclusions: This is one of the first studies to examine summer weight gain by school location. Summer appears to impact children more negatively from urban schools when compared to their suburban and exurban counterparts.