Underweight and overweight cases among the mentally retarded.
The body mass index (BMI) was calculated at the age of 20 for all the 132 survivors (83%) out of the 159 mentally retarded individuals born in 1966 in Northern Finland. Reliable information was acquired for 112 cases (84.8%). The mean BMI for these cases did not deviate significantly from that for an average Finnish population at age 20-29 years. It was found that 41.5% of the slightly retarded cases (IQ 35-70) and 28.6% of the seriously retarded ones (IQ less than 35) were of ideal weight (BMI 20-24), while 9.8% of all the retarded individuals were moderately obese (BMI greater than 30) and 7.1% seriously so (BMI greater than or equal to 32). Ninety-one per cent of the seriously obese cases lived with their parents and did not participate in any occupational therapy or work. A total of 29.5% of the mentally retarded subjects were underweight (BMI less than 20), a condition which would seem to be above all a problem for seriously retarded individuals and an obvious consequence of the different feeding and dietary problems connected with their multiple disabilities.
Similä
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Department of Paediatrics, University of Oulu, Finland.
Niskanen
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D000328:Adult; D015992:Body Mass Index; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology*; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D013851:Thinness / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*