title: Childhood obesity and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a newly described comorbidity in obese hospitalized children.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital, Hebrew University Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel. anatagranat@barak-online.net
authors.forename: Anat N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Agranat-Meged
authors.forename: Chane
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Deitcher
authors.forename: Gil
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Goldzweig
authors.forename: Lilach
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Leibenson
authors.forename: Magda
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stein
authors.forename: Esti
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Galili-Weisstub
mesh_terms: 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