Are My ADHD Kids More Likely to Grow Up Obese?
By Lisa Aro
Published Mar 17, 2014
I will never forget sitting in the psychiatrist’s office as he described where our kids fell on the ADHD scale. He pointed his finger. “Here’s the circle of ADHD,” then he motioned far away from the circle. “Here are your kids.”
My children won’t be going off their ADHD medication anytime soon. They need them. Their ADHD medications don’t just affect their ADHD, they also help them manage anxiety, depression, obsessive thoughts, and fixations, not to mention impulsiveness. Take away their medication and you take away part of what helps them find balance.
So when I read a new study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that links ADHD medication use in younger children with higher-than-normal BMIs, I just thought to myself, “Great, like I needed something else to worry about.”
You’d think that the combination of hyperactivity and stimulants would lead to lower rather than higher BMIs, but this study found the opposite: Children who began stimulant medication very young had slower BMI growth at first, but then had a “rebound effect” in adolescence where their BMIs grew rapidly and put them at risk for obesity later in life.
The study recommended that doctors make a point of annually checking height and weight to make sure ADHD children on stimulant medications are staying within recommended BMI parameters. If a child looks to be at risk of developing obesity issues, doctors should help parents initiate proper interventions. I can see the importance of this, but I have to wonder — shouldn’t they be doing this for all their patients, regardless of ADHD?
Unmedicated ADHD Kids May Have Obesity Risk, Too
The AAP study didn’t look just at ADHD children’s stimulant use and BMI. Researchers also found that ADHD children who didn’t take stimulant medications also had faster BMI growth than non-ADHDers. The study authors suggested that this may be a result of “deficient inhibitory control, poor executive functions, and inability to monitor eating behaviors,” and that, “It should be noted that behavioral therapy, specifically parent training,can be effective for ADHD management and has no known BMI rebound effect.”
Call me oversensitive from years of parenting a house full of ADHDers, but that sounded too much like a back-handed way of saying bad parenting is to blame and good parenting can fix it. There is no doubt that we need all the help we can get. But it just isn’t as simple as this study makes it out to be. In my experience, most parents of ADHD children do their best for their children, investing in book after book on the subject and scouring the Internet for ideas.
What It Means For Those of Us in the Parenting Trenches
I have so many ADHDers on medication in my house that it’s hard not to take a closer look at our eating habits.
If you sneak a peek at my pantry, you won’t find many processed snacks. Crackers, chips, and cookies are not things we buy often. Obviously, they’re not good for us, but processed foods are also expensive, especially considering we have six mouths to feed. My kitchen does, however, contain flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and possibly even chocolate chips. Why? I have a house rule about unhealthy food: If you want it badly enough to make it from scratch, then I’ll most likely let you eat it.
I’m going to keep junk food out of our house, for the most part, having found one more reason to stick to the plan.
I’m going to keep encouraging my children to get regular exercise. This helps them both physically and mentally, releasing all kinds of great brain chemicals and bringing life into better balance.
I am going to work with them on their tendency to eat without stopping because they like a taste or texture. I’ll do my best to help them develop strategies so they can control their urge to eat impulsively, especially their appetite for sweets.
So if you’re in my house and you want a treat, you better break out the cookbook, flour, and eggs and hope there are some chocolate chips somewhere in the pantry — because you’ll have to make it yourself.