Assessment of Obesity, Psychiatric Comorbidity and Food Addiction in Children and Adolescents with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder

Abstract

Objective: There are studies showing that there is a significant relationship between ADHD and obesity. However the number of studies conducted on this topic is limited in our country. It is aimed to evaluate obesity frequency, distribution of psychiatric comorbidity and food addiction in children and adolescents with ADHD who applied to our outpatient clinic. Methods: Our sample size was planned to represent Ankara city and power analysis revealed that a sample of 369 individuals would be sufficient for the representation. Our sample consisted of 400 children aged between 8-16 years who applied to our clinic between June 15, 2016 and June 15, 2017 and diagnosed as ADHD. All cases were administered a semi-structured clinical assessment interview (K-SADS-PL) and a sociodemographic data form. Body mass index (BMI) of all subjects was calculated. The Conners Parent Rating Scale, The Conners Teacher Rating Scale and the Yale Food Addiction Scale for Children (YFAS-C) were used. According to age and sex, weight percentiles between 85-94 percentiles was defined as overweight, ≥95 percentile was defined as obese. SPSS 17.0 was used for statistical analysis, p