Understanding the Impact of Lifestyle on the Academic Performance of Middle- and High-School Students

Abstract

This paper presents a path analysis investigating the direct and indirect influence of lifestyle on academic performance for middle-school and high-school students. The correlation between the following sets of variables are studied: (a) lifestyle and stress; (b) stress and obesity; (c) lifestyle and obesity; (d) lifestyle on academic performance; (e) stress on academic performance; and (f) obesity on academic performance. Adolescent students from 18 schools in India participated in this study. While academic performance is estimated using GPA, questionnaires are used to capture the lifestyle habits of students as well as to assess various forms of stressors such as academic, psychological and health-related. Our results suggest that, a healthier lifestyle is positively correlated to academic performance, while high-stress level has a negative influence. A significant negative relationship is observed between lifestyle and stress, and stress and obesity are observed to be positively related. Obesity, surprisingly, is not a significant predictor of student academic performance for the collected survey data. Our investigation further exposes the need to consider lifestyle in future research.