MU researcher links childhood obesity, math skills
COLUMBIA -- A University of Missouri researcher reports she has found a link between childhood obesity and poor math skills.
Sara Gable is an associate professor in the university’s Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology. Her research followed more than 6,250 children from kindergarten through fifth grade.
Gable found that both boys and girls considered obese in kindergarten performed worse on math tests starting in first grade. Fewer gaps were seen in children who became obese when they were older.
She concluded the poor math performance was connected in part to feelings of sadness, loneliness and other shortcoming in social skills.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/19/3665148/mu-researcher-links-childhood.html#storylink=cpy
= new reply since forum marked as read
Seems like the press dumbed down this study. 
Either that, or this research seems pretty lame for a tenured professor.
Obese in kindergarten, you might not play as much and/or get socially outcast, leading to emotional stress and perhaps general disinterest in being around other kids, especially at school, around whom you feel excluded. You withdraw socially and perhaps academically. Math skills among others suffer.
But then, no offense, but you aren't a researcher at a university. 
