Did you know that youth gain as much weight during the summer as during the whole school year? The healthy meals, fitness activity and health awareness poured into them during school falls prey to summer slacking. 

According to the National Summer Learning Association, children gain body mass index (BMI) nearly twice as fast during the summer. BMI is a number calculated from a student’s height and weight. Known as a reliable indicator of body fatness, it is used to screen for weight concerns that lead to health problems. A BMI of 25-29 signifies overweight, while a BMI of 30 or more puts the individual in the obese category. And while we know that Hispanic and African American children are more prone to obesity, they are also the ones who benefit the most from healthy practices at school.

Consider these five ways to help your students stay healthy during the summer:

By now you should know the facts. Studies reveal indisputable evidence of learning loss for many students during the summer, particularly for low-income youth. We call this “the summer slide.”

Not only is the summer slide characterized by setbacks in reading and math skills, but can include weight gain due to inactivity and poor nutrition at home, risky behavior due to boredom and isolation, and an overall drop in learning opportunity.

Central Valley Afterschool Foundation has been a part of what is now called California’s Summer Learning Initiative for the past three years. The project, seeded by the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, has grown to eight demonstration sites:  Fresno, Gilroy, Oakland, San Francisco, Whittier, Sacramento, Santa Ana, and Los Angeles. It is designed to create a bold, new vision for summer learning by setting a higher standard for summer enrichment and increasing access to summer learning opportunities for low-income children.

Summer for kids no longer has to mean TV watching, snacking and boredom every day. There are alternative ways to take the summer opportunity and involve your kids in productive activities that can be fun as well as academically and physically enriching.

Research shows that children and youth who lack access to enriching activities face a number of behavioral risks, a greater potential for weight gain, and they typically experience learning loss over the summer months. Consider the facts:

Since 1906, there have been more than 40 empirical studies that have found indisputable evidence of a pattern of “summer learning loss,” particularly for low-income youth:

Students typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer than they do on the same tests at the beginning of summer. (Downey et al. 2004)

All young people are at risk of experiencing setbacks in math skills over the summer months. (Cooper, 1996)

Young people in high-poverty communities face much greater risks of experiencing losses.  Low-income children fall behind an average of 2-3 months in reading skills while their middle-income peers can make slight gains. (Cooper, 1996)