A recent research has reported that younger pupils at a school where older students are obese or overweight are much more likely to suffer weight problems of their own.

For every 1% increase in the number of obese students in a school, between the age groups of 16 to 18, the odds of younger students, i.e., those between the ages of 14 and 16 years, attending the same school also being overweight are hiked significantly.

"It was the one risk factor that held true across every school we looked at. Schools that had a large number of obese younger students were disproportionately likely also to have a high percentage of overweight older students. The association was completely consistent", said Dr. Scott Leatherdale, the chair of research at Cancer Care Ontario and lead investigator with the School Health Action, Planning and Evaluation System.

This study has been the first ever to research the link between weight problems of younger and older pupils attending the same school. Researchers feel that one reason could be that younger students always tend to look up to the older ones and mimic their trends and habits.

For the sake of study, nearly 25,500 students across 76 schools were analyzed and conclusions were then drawn.

The research is all set to be published next week in the Journal of Youth Adolescence.