This study looked at 16-year-olds born in Northern Finland in 1986. It compared teens with current ADHD (90 people), teens whose ADHD had faded since childhood (40 people) and teens who never had ADHD (269 people). None of the teens with ADHD had taken stimulant medicine. The teen ADHD group had more boys than the comparison group.
Body weight did not differ. Both ADHD groups had about the same body mass index as their peers, even after taking gender, long-term illness, parent education and family type into account.
Eating and exercise did differ, based on the teens' own reports. Teens with current ADHD were more likely to say they hardly ever ate vegetables. They had fast food, soft drinks, sweets and crisps more often. They ate breakfast less regularly on weekdays and more often ate large amounts of food in one go. These two differences did not survive a stricter check. These teens did more light exercise but less hard exercise and fewer individual sports.
Teens with childhood-only ADHD also more often hardly ever ate vegetables, but otherwise did not clearly differ.
The groups were small, especially the childhood-only one. The study used older diagnostic rules and did not follow the teens over time. The authors suggest it could help to tell families of children with ADHD more about healthy eating habits.
Talk to a clinician about your own situation.
The numbers Stats and what the terms mean
The statistics behind the plain-language claims above.
- Halt, 2023: average body mass index (kg/m2), 21.09 in controls (n = 253), 21.07 in childhood ADHD (n = 40) and 21.43 in adolescent ADHD (n = 84); Mann-Whitney U p = 0.750 (childhood ADHD vs controls) and p = 0.995 (adolescent ADHD vs controls).
- Halt, 2023: body mass index difference after adjusting for other factors, childhood ADHD vs controls beta -0.33 (95% CI -1.44, 0.77), p = 0.555; adolescent ADHD vs controls beta 0.52 (95% CI -0.42, 1.48), p = 0.273.
- Halt, 2023: vegetables 0 days a week, adolescent ADHD vs controls, 26% versus 12%, p = 0.010.
- Halt, 2023: fast food almost daily or daily, 9% versus 4%, p = 0.003.
- Halt, 2023: soft drinks almost daily or daily, 34% versus 16%, p = 0.002.
- Halt, 2023: sweets almost daily or daily, 25% versus 13%, p = 0.026.
- Halt, 2023: potato crisps almost daily or daily, 4% versus 2%, p = 0.009 (these five marked p < 0.05 after Holm-Bonferroni correction).
- Halt, 2023: no weekday breakfast, 33% versus 21%, p = 0.033, and devouring at least once a week, 17% versus 7%, p = 0.020 (neither marked significant after Holm-Bonferroni correction).
- Halt, 2023: light exercise at least 4 h a week, 38% versus 26%, p = 0.032.
- Halt, 2023: strenuous exercise of at least 20 min 3 times a month or less, 40% versus 26%, p = 0.022.
- Halt, 2023: individual sports less than three times a month, 23% versus 12%, p = 0.011.
- Halt, 2023: vegetables hardly ever, childhood ADHD vs controls, 25% versus 12%, p = 0.045. What the terms mean:
- p is the chance of seeing a difference this large if there were no real difference; below 0.05 is usually read as unlikely to be down to chance.
- beta is how much higher or lower body mass index was in the ADHD group after adjusting for other factors. A minus sign shows the direction, not the size.
- 95% CI is the range the true value likely falls in. When it spans zero, the result could be no difference at all.
- Holm-Bonferroni correction is a stricter check used when many things are tested at once, so that chance findings are less likely to slip through.
Source: Halt A, Hirvonen T, Koskela J, et al.. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is not associated with overweight in adolescence but is related to unhealthy eating behavior and limited physical activity. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry (2023). doi:10.1080/08039488.2023.2198504