Health Care Utilization from Prevalent Medical Conditions in Normal-Weight, Overweight, and Obese Children

Objective

To explore the commonly recorded diagnoses in overweight and obese children presenting to a clinical care setting compared with their normal-weight peers.

Study design

This was a cross-sectional study linking data from 3361 fifth grade students from the 2003 Children’s Lifestyle and School Performance Study with Nova Scotia administrative health data over 6 years.

Results

Overweight and obese children were more likely to have had a diagnosis of internalizing disorders, asthma, other respiratory disorders, obesity, otitis media, and chronic adenoid/tonsil disorder. Conversely, normal-weight children were more likely to have a diagnosis of conduct disorder or other mental diseases. Except for internalizing disorders, overweight and obese children also had significantly higher health care costs for these conditions.

Conclusion

Overweight and obese children had higher health care utilization across a range of diagnoses, further confirming that health care utilization patterns of overweight and obese children differ from those of their normal-weight peers. Greater attention to the relationship between more common childhood conditions and overweight and obesity is needed, given the greater prevalence in overweight and obese children and the fact that some of the more established obesity-related conditions occur less frequently, particularly in younger children.

BMI, Body mass index, CLASS, Children’s Lifestyle and School Performance Study, ICD-9, International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision