title: Child and adolescent psychopathology predicts increased adult body mass index: results from a prospective community sample.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine the relationship between childhood and adolescent symptoms of (1) depression, (2) attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and (3) conduct disorder (CD) with adult body mass index (BMI) in a prospective longitudinal study of 3294 community participants in the Ontario Child Health Survey.
  
  
  METHODS
  One thousand nine hundred ninety-two children aged 4 to 11 years and 1302 adolescents aged 12 to 16 years at study entry in 1983 underwent follow-up in 2000. Body mass index data were available for 1886 adult participants in the year 2000, which comprised the final study sample. Data were collected from youth, parents, and teachers using a combination of parental, youth, and teacher self-report and semistructured interview. Body mass index is a derived variable determined from the self-reported height and weight in 2000.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Adults with depression, ADHD, or CD identified in childhood had increased body weight (BMI = 27.2 kg/m, 27.7 kg/m, and 27.9 kg/m, respectively) compared with their nonaffected peers (BMI = 24.8 kg/m; p < .001). Greater depressive symptoms in childhood were associated with increased adult BMI among boys (p = .02). Among adolescents, depression and sex interact in the association with adult BMI (p = .01). The association of childhood ADHD with adult overweight was completely accounted for by the effect of comorbid child conduct disturbance (p < .001) for both girls and boys. Greater conduct symptoms were associated with increased adult BMI (p = .04) among adolescent girls.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This epidemiologic study suggests that psychopathology in childhood is associated with increased adult BMI. Early identification of psychiatric illness may present key opportunities for targeted prevention of obesity.
authors.affiliation: *Department of Psychiatry, The Hospital for Sick Children, The University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; †Division of Child Psychiatry, ‡Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, §Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, ‖Offord Centre for Child Studies, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada; ¶Department of Pediatrics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
authors.forename: Daphne J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Korczak
authors.forename: Ellen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lipman
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Morrison
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Duku
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Szatmari
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002648:Child; D019955:Conduct Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D050177:Overweight / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012737:Sex Factors; D055815:Young Adult