Body mass index and neuropsychological function in healthy children and adolescents

Abstract

Elevated body mass index (BMI) is associated with adverse neurocognitive outcome in adults, including reduced neuropsychological test performance. It is unknown whether this relationship also exists in children and adolescents. A total of 478 children and adolescents (age 6–19) without significant medical or psychiatric history provided demographic information and completed a computerized cognitive test battery. Participants were categorized using clinical criteria into underweight, normal weight, at risk for overweight and overweight groups based on age and gender. Partial correlation and MANCOVA analyses adjusting for age and intellectual function found no relationship between BMI and cognitive test performance in the full sample. However, analyses performed separately by gender showed that underweight females exhibited poorer memory performance than other female BMI groups. These findings suggest that elevated BMI is not associated with cognitive function in healthy children and adolescents, though underweight might be a risk factor for reduced memory performance in females. Further work is needed to clarify the inconsistent findings between adults and minors.