Childhood obesity is a condition where excess body fat negatively affects a child health and wellbeing. Lack of physical activity, genetic influences or unhealthy eating habits are the main causes of obesity. According to World Health Organization (WHO), childhood obesity is one of the most serious global public health challenges for the 21st century.
In the past 30 years, childhood obesity has been increasing at an alarming rate. It has doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents. It is now considered that more than one-third of the children population is overweight or obese. In the United States alone the percentage of obese children have increased from 7% in 1980 to 18% in 2012.
There are many risks associated with children being obese, they can develop chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes later in life. Latest studies by pediatric migraine experts have found a substantial link between obesity and headaches in children.
Researchers at the New England Center for Headache in Stamford, USA had identified that a child who suffers from migraines is 36% more likely to be obese or overweight. Dr. Andrew D. Hershey, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and his team studied 440 children suffering from headaches, it has been noted that 91% of them are diagnosed by a migraine. This shows how a common migraine is prevalent among children and adolescents.
Read more about: What is Migraine, Symptoms and Triggers.
Dr. Hershey said, “The numbers tell us that being overweight may contribute to kids having more headaches, most often migraines”. He also said that it may not be that being overweight directly causes a migraine, but that the reasons for being overweight cause these children to have worsening migraine headaches. The more overweight the children are the more severe and frequent are the headaches in children.
Dr. Marcelo Biagal, a study author, said that obesity is a state of chronic, low-degree systemic inflammation. “Most of the inflammatory markers that are elevated in obese people also play a role in the inflammation of blood vessels in the brain that occurs during migraine attacks. Being a pro-inflammatory state, obesity may increase the chances of migraine attacks in people who are biologically predisposed to suffer from migraines”.
If can be concluded from the above studies that overweight and obese children are more prone to migraine headaches. The children suffering from a migraine are more likely to miss their school and other activities thus seriously affecting the child’s quality of life. It is advised to the parents of overweight child to pay attention to fostering healthy habits such as exercise, good nutrition and sound sleep to their children apart from good medication by consulting pediatric migraine specialists.
Also Read: Interesting facts about migraines in children