The nation's schools often are blamed for the growing numbers of overweight youth, which likely explains why a national study by IU sociology Professor Brian Powell and IU alum Douglas Downey, now a sociologist at Ohio State University , quickly became national news.

Their survey found that young children actually got heavier during their summer breaks than while in school. The children's Body Mass Indexes increased more than twice as quickly during the summer, and even more dramatically for kids already at risk of being overweight.

“Schools have been getting a bad rap,” Powell says. "This isn't to say that schools can't improve -- but we found that kids' weight gain is more under control during the school year than during summer break. This suggests that instead of thinking of schools as the problem, schools appear to be part of the solution."

The study appeared in the American Journal of Public Health. OSU sociologist Paul T. von Hippel and Nicholas J. Rowland, a doctoral student in IU's Department of Sociology, also were co-authors.

The researchers examined the BMI growth rates of 5,380 kindergartners and first graders using the National Center for Education Statistics Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort. BMI is calculated using a person's weight and height and provides a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people.

This isn't the first time Powell's research has examined obesity-related issues. Twenty years ago, when research involving obesity was far less common, he was involved in two projects: One studied the impact a person's weight had on how they were treated by mental health workers; the other compared children's perceptions of how they looked with their parents' perception of how the children looked.

Obesity fits into his research agenda today because of his focus on children's outcomes “across the board.” Powell, the Allen D. and Polly S. Grimshaw Professor, examines the conditions under which children do better or worse, the conditions under which they thrive.

“When we think about what affects children, there are lots of things, but family and schools either jointly or separately have a great influence on what happens to children,” he says.