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Summer Weight Gain and Fitness Loss: Causes and Potential Solutions

Over the past 3 decades, public health professionals have worked to stem the rising childhood obesity epidemic. Despite the field’s best efforts, no progress has been made in reducing child obesity. One reason for this failure may be that obesity prevention and treatment efforts have predominately been delivered during the 9-month school year. However, recent evidence suggests that the summer, not the school year, is when unhealthy changes in body composition (ie, accelerated increases in percent body fat) and fitness losses occur. This unhealthy change in body composition and fitness loss during the summer could be explained by the “Structured Days Hypothesis,” which posits that children engage in a greater number of unhealthy obesogenic behaviors on unstructured days when compared with structured days. Furthermore, the summer may be contributing to a widening “health gap” between children from low-income and middle- to upper-income families. During summer, fewer opportunities exist for children from low-income households to access healthy structured programs that do not require fees for participation. Moving forward, public health professionals should prioritize efforts to mitigate unhealthy changes in body composition and fitness loss during the summer by identifying ways to provide access to structured programming during this timeframe for children from low-income households.