Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Social adaptation difficulty is one of the serious complications in obese children. It manifests with the complex of emotional and behavioral disorders.

Aim: To estimate the peculiarities of psychological status, frequency, and severity of depressive disorders in obese children.

Methods: We examined 242 children in the in the Endocrinological Department of University Hospital (Minsk); group 1 – 152 obese children (BMI 33.4±4.07 kg/m², 14.63±1.7 years), group 2 – 90 normal-weight controls (BMI 20.5±1.47 kg/m² (P=0.0001), 14.5±1.5 years (P=0.6)). All children and their parents underwent psychological testing: (Children Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire) ChEDE-Q, (Depression Self-Rating Scale) DSRS, and (Child Behavior checklist) CBCL. Results were processed using SPSS.18.

Results: The reliable differences on CBCL testing were in obese children vs controls – anxious and depressive scale (P=0.002), impulsiveness scale (P=0.009), estrangement scale (P=0.0001), and attention deficiency scale (P=0.001). The frequency of depressive disorders (DSRS) were in 18.1% obese children. The severity of depressive symptoms didn’t correlate with BMI. Clinical depression correlated with compulsive symptoms severity (CBCL) (P=0.02). Binge eating (BE) disorders were diagnosed in 20% obese children (P=0.016). The reliable difference between BE and age, gender, BMI didn’t noted (P=0.3–0.06). We can say with the probability of 99% (P=0.002 and 0.004) that compulsive mechanisms of BE in obese children are determined with the presence of emotional disorders (anxious and depressive symptoms and estrangement).

Conclusions: The reliable increase in the frequency of psychological and behavioral disorders were noted in obese children in comparison with normal-weight control.