Obesity and overweight in intellectual and non-intellectually disabled children.
Children with ID carry extra weight and move less, but structured school-day exercise can erase the gap.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Van Hanegem et al. (2014) weighed and measured 8- to 14-year-olds in Northern Ireland schools.
They compared pupils with intellectual disability to same-age classmates without ID.
The team looked at body-mass index, waist size, and hours of moderate-to-high physical activity.
What they found
Pupils with ID were 1.4 times more likely to be overweight or obese.
They also had bigger waists and spent fewer hours moving hard enough to raise heart rate.
How this fits with other research
Einarsson et al. (2016) saw the same pattern in Iceland: children with ID moved less and sat more.
In-Lee et al. (2012) pooled 14 studies and showed exercise programs can fix this gap.
Collins et al. (2017) proved it works in ten weeks: 15 hours of structured play cut fat and boosted strength.
The bad news and the good news line up: kids with ID start behind, but good programs catch them up.
Why it matters
You cannot assume your client with ID gets enough movement outside school.
Build short, fun, high-movement breaks into every session.
Schedule four 30- to 60-minute activity blocks each week, just like the meta-analysis says.
Track waist size or BMI each quarter to see if the trend bends.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Few studies have compared overweight and obesity in intellectually disabled (ID) and non-intellectually disabled (N-ID) children. This research compared the prevalence of overweight and obesity between a sample of 218 ID and 229 N-ID school pupils in Northern Ireland (NI). Comparison of the physical activity and dietary behaviour of the two groups of school pupils were also undertaken. METHODS: Each pupil completed (assisted if required) a food intake and physical activity questionnaire. Following this body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference were measured and recorded. RESULTS: Significantly more ID pupils (72, 33%) were overweight/obese compared with 55 (24%) of the N-ID pupils in accordance with their BMI. ID pupils also had significantly higher waist circumferences. Over a quarter of foods consumed by the pupils were fatty and sugary foods and close to 30% of these foods were eaten by the ID children. Pupils spent most of their time engaging in low levels of activity such as reading, watching TV, on games consoles and listening to music. Pupils with an ID spent fewer hours on moderate and high levels of activities compared with those children with N-ID. CONCLUSIONS: Results of this study found higher levels of overweight and obesity in this sample than in international published research. Additionally significantly higher numbers of ID pupils were overweight and obese indicating the need for future research and public health to focus on this issue.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2014 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2012.01615.x