Background: Prevalence of obesity is growing worldwide, especially in the population of adolescents with intellectual disability. Nevertheless, no study has focused on this problem in France. The objective of this work was thus to study body weight in French preadolescents, adolescents and young adults with intellectual disability schooled in specialized institutions.
Methods: Four hundred and twenty French participants with intellectual disability, aged 11 to 21, were included in the study. An epidemiological questionnaire was built and distributed to 14 specialized institutions where the participants were schooled. The following participants' characteristics were collected: age, sex, level of disability, psychopathology, genetic disorder and medication. International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) cut-off for adolescents and World Health Organisation cut-off for adults based on body mass index were used to define preobesity and obesity. Data were analysed with t-tests, analysis of variance and Chi(2) tests.
Results: 30.2% of participants were overweight, including 9.5% exhibiting obesity. Results showed that: girls were significantly more concerned by preobesity than boys; individuals with Down's syndrome were significantly more obese than those without genetic disorder; individuals taking psychotropic medications were significantly more obese than those who did not; no difference in prevalence could be identified regarding the level of intellectual disability and the presence or not of pervasive developmental disorders.
Conclusion: The prevalences observed in this study are clearly higher than those observed in the general population. This creates a supplementary handicap for the social inclusion of this population. Specialized institutions should become aware of the recent development of this secondary illness.