Association between child/adolescent overweight/obesity and conduct disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Research findings of the association and its pattern between obesity and psychiatric/psychological comorbidities are not consistent across the types of comorbidities or the study subgroups.

We aimed to perform meta-analysis of cross-sectional studies and longitudinal studies analysing obesity as a risk factor for conduct disorder in order to assess the association between child/adolescent overweight/obesity and conduct disorder.

Systematic literature search, study selection and data extraction were performed independently by the two authors. Data were analysed by Comprehensive Meta-analysis software.

Analysis of 13 high-quality cross-sectional studies including 79 027 children and adolescents indicated a significant association between overweight/obesity and conduct disorder among children and adolescents (OR 1.32 [95% CI, 1.18-1.49], I² = 86.68), with no publication bias. Subgroup analyses yielded a significant difference (P < .01) between boys and girls. Analysis of four low- to moderate-quality longitudinal studies (OR 1.11 [95% CI, 0.89-1.38], I² = 57.69) showed no prospective association between overweight/obesity and conduct disorder. Subgroup analysis according to gender revealed a significant positive association for boys and negative association for girls.

Based on the high-quality cross-sectional data, overweight and obesity are associated with conduct disorder among children and adolescents, affecting boys more frequently than girls. Results of the longitudinal analysis indicated possible association in boys, while girls seem to be protected from conduct disorder. However, these results are very unreliable, indicating the need of well-designed longitudinal studies to elucidate the pattern of association between these disorders.