Poster #63 - Beyond Body Mass Index: Examining Physical Health Indicators Among Preschoolers With and Without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

• In Event: Poster Session 09

Abstract

Obesity in children has been on an upward trend for the past 14 years (Skinner & Skelton, 2014). The prevalence of childhood obesity creates a need for understanding this trend and finding solutions to mitigate the current epidemic (Ogden et al., 2016). Research indicates that there is an association between obesity and ADHD; however, there is a lack of research examining how such association emerges in early childhood (Cortese & Vincenzi, 2011). More importantly, there is a lack of work on examining a wider range of early health indicators among children with ADHD relative to typically developing (TD) children. The current study explores not only body mass index (BMI) but also a more accurate body composition measurement (i.e., percentage body adiposity) along with a fitness measure, physical activity (PA) measurement, and nutritional quality among a diverse sample of young children with ADHD and TD. Identifying these early health indicators may help to understand what drives the comorbidity of ADHD and obesity in later life.

The total sample size of this study was 219 children, and their ages ranged from 4 to 7 years-old (Mage=5.48, SD age =.70; 34.7% female; 80.9% Hispanic/Latino; 92.6% White; 7.4% Black). Of the sample, 126 children met diagnostic criteria for ADHD (57.5%), while the remaining 93 children were in the TD group (42.5%). Actical uniaxial accelerometers were worn for a minimum of three days to measure PA. Fitness in participants was measured by doing a side jump test (Bös et al., 2004). The InBody 270 Analyzer provided body fat percentage and BMI. Finally, parents of participants completed three daily food diaries and a quantitative measure of nutritional quality was calculated using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI; Krebs-Smith et al., 2018).

Multiple univariate analyses were conducted to examine the differences in PA, fitness, body composition, and nutrition metrics between young children with ADHD and those in the TD group, controlling for participants’ age and sex where appropriate. In terms of BMI and as seen in Figure 1, children with ADHD were more likely to be obese, but not overweight relative to TD (Cohen’s d = .30). However, as shown in Table 1, no significant differences were found for body composition measures. There were also no significant differences in PA between the ADHD and TD groups. On the other hand, the ADHD group did score significantly lower on the fitness and nutrition measures (Cohen’s d = .27 and .32, respectively). Moving beyond our BMI finding, our analyses found no difference in body adiposity nor PA levels between children with ADHD and TD. Instead, there were differences in other physical health measures that may contribute to obesity (i.e., fitness and nutrition). Such findings have implications on how children with ADHD’s health habits early in life may contribute to an increased risk for obesity as they get older. We are wrapping up our 1-year follow-up assessments on this sample and plan on evaluating potential differences in the growth trajectories of these health indicators between children with ADHD vs. TD.

Authors

• Madeline Curzon, Florida International University
  Presenting Author

• Luisa Maria Bermeo, Florida Internatioal University

• Melissa Lynn Hernandez, Florida International University

• Catherine Coccia

• Anthony Steven Dick, Florida International University

• Paulo A Graziano, Florida International University