The
following study was published online in the Journal
of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry on February 5, 2014:
“Childhood
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms Are Risk Factors for Obesity
and Physical Inactivity in Adolescence.”
The authors were Natasha Khalife, MSc, Marko Kantomaa, PhD, Vivette Glover, PhD, Tuija Tammelin, PhD, Jaana Laitinen, PhD, Hanna Ebeling, MD, Tuula Hurtig, PhD, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, MD, PhD, and Alina Rodriguez, PhD
The authors were Natasha Khalife, MSc, Marko Kantomaa, PhD, Vivette Glover, PhD, Tuija Tammelin, PhD, Jaana Laitinen, PhD, Hanna Ebeling, MD, Tuula Hurtig, PhD, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, MD, PhD, and Alina Rodriguez, PhD
It
found that a diagnoses of ADHD, as well as that of conduct disorder, two supposed brain
disorders (if you listen to the biological psychiatrist dogmatists), are major
risk factors for the development of adolescent obesity.
Not only that, but the mediating factor was
shown to be physical inactivity and not binge eating.
So
what’s so intriguing about this? Well
think about it for a moment. What does the the “H” in ADHD stand for? Hyperactivity.
These supposedly
hyperactive kids are somehow showing signs of an inactive lifestyle? This is even more amazing when you think about the fact that the main treatment
for ADHD is drugs like Adderall, which are well known appetite suppressants.
"In general, people think of children with hyperactivity as moving around a lot and therefore should be slim" so this connection seems counterintuitive, senior author Alina Rodriguez was quoted as saying in a Medscape article about the study. What an understatement!
"In general, people think of children with hyperactivity as moving around a lot and therefore should be slim" so this connection seems counterintuitive, senior author Alina Rodriguez was quoted as saying in a Medscape article about the study. What an understatement!
Maybe it's because
they aren't hyperactive most of the time at all, but only under certain environmental conditions? Maybe it’s because they have parents who are
poor disciplinarians? The parents not only let them eat whatever the hell they
want, but let them lounge around the house all day doing as little as possible?
Thank you for pointing out the silliness of these studies, Dr. Allen. This reminds me of my blog post on the geography of ADHD in the U.S., and how it seems to correlate with areas of the country that have lower social mobility (which I bet is also correlated with decreased parental involvement, higher obesity, etc.).
ReplyDeleteI wish more researchers would focus on what's happening in the families and in the social context rather than what's going on in these kids' brains.
Are you really a psychiatrist because you sound like you don't know anything about ADHD. There's so many things wrong with this post I don't know where to start.
ReplyDeleteWell, if you don't know where to start, then we can't discuss all the points you think are untrue or illogical in the post, now can we?
DeleteI had both diagnoses as a childhood, including childhood-onset conduct disorder. I was pretty active in elementary school, but as I moved toward puberty I did become more sedentary. As I understand, this is actually common in ADHD, to become less active as you move through adolescence.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, I had severe issues that as early as age 5 got me put into a class for the "severely emotionally disturbed," after an attempt to find psychosocial causes for my behavior failed. So it's hard to say, at least in my case, it was fake.
Yeah it seems autism is the new diagnosis for children.
ReplyDelete