Abstract
Weight suppression, defined as the discrepancy between an individual’s highest historical weight and their current weight, has been implicated in the development and maintenance of eating disorders. Although weight suppression has also been found to impact mood, anxiety and suicidal behavior in patients with and without disordered eating, it has not been examined as a transdiagnostic risk factor for general psychopathology. The current study examined growth records of 281 children and adolescents (ages 7 to 17) newly diagnosed with psychiatric disorders to determine whether these children were more likely to be weight suppressed as compared to an age- and gender-matched control group. Findings suggest that weight suppression is related to an increased risk for anxiety disorders and externalizing disorders for males. These results underscore the need for psychiatric and behavioral health providers to review pediatric growth charts as a routine part of psychiatric evaluation. As weight restoration is a necessary precondition for eating disorder recovery, more research is necessary to determine if weight restoration can enhance treatments for psychiatric symptoms occurring in the context of weight suppression.
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Leslie Sim, Cynthia Harbeck Weber and Jocelyn Lebow conceptualized the study and supervised data collection and contributed to the drafting and editing of the entire manuscript. Stephen Whiteside conceptualized the data analyses strategy, analyzed the data and drafted the methods and result section and contributed to the editing of the manuscript. Nicholas Sawchuk extracted all of the data and edited the manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved the final draft of this manuscript.
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This study was approved by the Mayo Clinic Institutional Review Board. Only records from patients whose parents/guardians had provided research authorization were included.
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Sim, L.A., Whiteside, S., Harbeck-Weber, C. et al. Weight Suppression and Risk for Childhood Psychiatric Disorders. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-023-01617-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-023-01617-7