Childhood obesity and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a newly described comorbidity in obese hospitalized children.
OBJECTIVE
The current study described a subgroup of children presenting with obesity and comorbid attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) and assessed a possible casual relationship.


METHODS
School-aged children hospitalized for obesity (body mass index [BMI] >85%) in a tertiary referral center underwent extensive evaluations and were prospectively assessed for comorbid AD/HD.


RESULTS
During a 4-year period, 32 obese school-aged children were hospitalized and 26 were included in the current study. We found that over one half (57.7%) suffered from comorbid AD/HD.


CONCLUSIONS
AD/HD shows a high comorbidity among obese hospitalized children. The characteristic difficulty in regulation found in AD/HD may be a risk factor for the development of abnormal eating behaviors leading to obesity. We suggest that obese children should be screened routinely for AD/HD.
Agranat-Meged
Anat N
AN
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital, Hebrew University Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel. anatagranat@barak-online.net
Deitcher
Chane
C
Goldzweig
Gil
G
Leibenson
Lilach
L
Stein
Magda
M
Galili-Weisstub
Esti
E
D000293:Adolescent; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D002673:Child, Hospitalized / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D009767:Obesity, Morbid / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors