The impact of obesity on developmental coordination disorder in adolescence.
Obese teens, especially boys, show far higher severe motor-coordination risk than lean peers.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Wagner et al. (2011) compared obese teens with normal-weight classmates.
They checked who met the risk cutoff for severe developmental coordination disorder.
Balance, jumping, and dexterity tasks were videotaped and scored.
What they found
Obese adolescents were far more likely to land in the severe DCD risk group.
Boys with obesity showed the biggest balance problems.
Girls with obesity still scored worse than lean peers, but the gap was smaller.
How this fits with other research
The result lines up with Wahi et al. (2011), who saw higher belly fat and blood pressure in younger children with DCD.
Chirico et al. (2012) followed teens for three years and found the extra fat mass drove thicker heart walls, proving the weight link lasts.
Gentier et al. (2013) seems to disagree at first glance: they found motor delays in obese kids who did NOT have DCD.
The studies do not clash; they simply show extra weight can hurt motor skills whether or not a child already carries a DCD label.
Why it matters
If a teen client carries extra weight, expect balance and coordination to be shaky.
Start assessments with weight-friendly tasks such as static stance or seated bean-bag toss.
Build programs that trim fat and train motor skills together; both goals support each other.
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Join Free →Open your next teen assessment with a simple single-leg stand test and note any sway; if balance is poor and BMI is high, add weight-management targets to the behavior plan.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) as well as overweight and obesity are of increasing importance in the study of human development. Data on the relation between DCD and obesity in adolescence are of particular interest because both phenomena are unlikely to disappear with age. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of obesity on severe DCD in adolescence. A total of 99 obese adolescents aged between 11 and 16 years and 99 normal-weight controls matched for age and gender were included in this cross-sectional study. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children 2 (age band 3) was used to determine subjects' stage of motor development. Results made clear that (i) obese show a higher severe DCD-risk in comparison to normal-weight adolescents (p<.01) which is (ii) most pronounced in balance (p<.01), and (iii) thereby rather appears in boys (p≤.10). Thus, our results at least do not exclude the possibility that obesity might have a detrimental effect on the etiopathology of DCD beyond childhood. Therefore, primary obesity prevention measures may additionally contribute to the prevention of a possible consolidation of severe DCD.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2011 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2011.04.004