WEDNESDAY, March 13, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Girls with obesity are more likely to visit their general practitioners (GPs) for musculoskeletal symptoms at ages 4 and 6 years, according to a study published online March 12 in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Nicola Firman, from Queen Mary University of London, and colleagues conducted a longitudinal study involving 285 Northeast London GPs to assess the incidence of musculoskeletal consultations among children with obesity. Data were included for 63,418 reception-year (age 4 years) and 55,364 year 6 (age 11 years) National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) participants.
The researchers found that 3.0 and 8.1 percent of reception-year and year 6 NCMP participants, respectively, had at least one musculoskeletal consultation. Reception-year girls with a body mass index classified as overweight or obese were more likely to have at least one musculoskeletal consultation in adjusted analyses (hazard ratios, 1.24 and 1.67, respectively). The likelihood of having a musculoskeletal consultation was higher for year 6 girls with obesity and lower for boys with a body mass index in the underweight range (hazard ratios, 1.20 and 0.39, respectively).
“Increased weight has the potential to contribute to continued musculoskeletal pain, and consequently children may experience a perpetual obesity/musculoskeletal pain cycle as adolescents and adults,” the authors write. “Our longitudinal findings have the potential to inform clinical assessment in primary care.”
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