Washington: The concept of home-schooling is gaining widespread recognition today. A new study has put forth that the years spent in home-schooling doesn’t seem to affect the general well being of children.
The study published in the journal Health Promotion International puts forth evidence that the amount of time a student spends in home school is weakly or not at all related to multiple aspects of youth physical health.
“Although there may be differences in the health of elementary to high school home-schoolers, those differences don’t seem to change with additional time spent in home school,” said lecturer Laura Kabiri, Rice University.
“In other words, staying in home school longer isn’t related to increased health benefits or deficits,” she added.
The results from the studies of more than 140 children in grades kindergarten to class fifth, who were tested against statistically normal data for children of their age and gender, accounted for prior published research that showed home-schooled children having less upper-body and abdominal muscle strength and more abdominal fat when compared to public school students.
Additional studies also showed that home-schooling benefited sleep patterns, overall body composition and diet.
However, to the researchers’ surprise, these differences in home-schoolers’ health did not appear to be affected either way by increased time in home school.
Laura explained, “Body composition can relate to sleep as well as diet. As far as muscular health goes, these kids are still active. We’re not saying there’s not an upfront benefit or detriment to their health, but after an initial gain or loss, there aren’t additional gains or losses over time if you’re going to home-school your children for one year or their entire careers.”
“The relationship between their health and the time they spend in home school seems to be irrelevant,” she opined.
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