Teenagers’ Weight and Behavior, Linked?

Some research shows that overweight teenagers are more prone to bad behavior such as cigarette smoking, drinking, drug use, sexual behavior, etc.  Psychologists at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio compared the “risky” behavior of 410 teens who were extremely obese (body-mass index in the 99th percentile) with 8,669 normal-weight teens (body-mass index within the 5th and 84th percentiles) and the findings were surprising. 

Meg Zeller, an associate professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and the lead author of the findings commented, “Given what we do know about what their day to day life is like, extreme obesity in particular being highly stigmatized, we expected that these teens would be more socially isolated and more peripheral in a peer group, and therefore less likely to be exposed to high risk scenarios that a typical teen is exposed to.”

Obese teens were more like to smoke cigarettes; obese girls were more like to use alcohol and drugs and less likely to have sex, compared to normal weight girls.  Extremely obese boys were about 50% more likely than their normal-weight counterparts to have ever tried cigarettes or to have started smoking before age 13. 

Overweight teenagers usually endure more stress due to their weight and maybe are more likely to turn to smoking, alcohol and drugs to help them cope with it. 

These findings can be very helpful.  Obese teens and adults are more prone to health problems such as diabetes, heart problems, etc. and cigarette smoking, alcohol use and/or drugs can escalate these problems in teens. 

Dr. Zeller hopes that the message of this study for pediatricians is that they need to talk to all teens -- even those who are very obese and apparently socially isolated -- about sex, drugs, and alcohol, as well as other psychological concerns, she commented.