Obese Teens Engage in Risky Behaviors Too - but in Sometimes Riskier Ways

A new analysis of federal data by psychologists at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center shows extremely obese teens are just as likely to engage in high-risk behaviors as their normal-weight peers.

Lead author Meg Zeller, an associate professor of pediatrics at the hospital, and colleagues used data from CDC’s 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey to compare the risky behavior of 410 extremely obese teens (body-mass index in the 99th percentile) with that of normal-weight teens (body-mass index within the 5th and 84th percentiles).

Extremely obese boys and girls had similar behaviors compared to their peers in terms of alcohol and drug use or having suicidal tendencies. Obese girls were less likely to have had sex than healthy-weight girls, though they were more likely to report drug or alcohol use before having sex, the study found. Obese and healthy-weight boys were as likely to have had sex before age 13, have had multiple partners or have used drugs or alcohol prior to sex.

Obese girls and boys were more likely to smoke cigarettes compared to their normal-weight peers. Obese boys were more likely to have started smoking before age 13, and obese girls were more likely to have tried cigarettes, be a current smoker, and to use smokeless tobacco.

“Given what we do know about what their day-to-day life is like, extreme obesity in particular being highly stigmatized, we expected that these teens would be more socially isolated and more peripheral in a peer group, and therefore less likely to be exposed to high-risk scenarios that a typical teen is exposed to,” said Zeller.

“Risk-Taking Behaviors of Adolescents with Extreme Obesity: Normative or Not?” was published in the journal Pediatrics (2011; doi:10.1542/peds.2010-2742).

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