Muscle, bone problems more common in heavy kids

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Overweight and obese children have more aches and pains in their muscles and bones than their normal-weight peers, Dutch researchers report.

Such musculoskeletal problems may lead normal-weight kids to be less active and put on weight, while such problems can make it more difficult for heavy kids to exercise to trim down, Dr. Marjolein Krul of Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam and her colleagues suggest. "We hypothesize that a vicious circle results wherein being overweight, musculoskeletal problems, and a low fitness level reinforce each other," they write.

In adults, being overweight or obese is known to contribute to musculoskeletal problems, especially in the legs and feet, Krul and her team note in the Annals of Family Medicine, but less is known about how excess weight might affect children's muscles and bones.

To investigate, they surveyed 2,459 children 2 to 17 years old, all of whom were patients at family practices in The Netherlands. About 7 percent of those normal weight children aged 2 to 11 years old had musculoskeletal problems in the two weeks before being interviewed, compared with more than 11 percent of those who were overweight and obese.

That relationship held for those children aged 12 to 17 years old, with about 38 percent of those of normal weight having such problems, and just more than half (almost 51 percent) of the overweight or obese children having aches and pains in their muscles and bones.

That translated to overweight and obese children 2 to 11 years old being almost twice as likely -- 1.86 times -- to have had musculoskeletal problems than their normal weight peers, while the likelihood for heavy 12- to 17-year-old children was 1.69 times greater.

Overall, the heavy children were 1.62 times more likely to have musculoskeletal problems than the normal weight children, and were close to two times -- 1.92 times -- more likely to have foot and ankle problems. Overweight and obese children 12 to 17 years old were nearly twice as likely to see their doctors for musculoskeletal problems in the course of a year.

The findings show that it's "important to be aware of the higher occurrence of musculoskeletal problems in these children, to provide adequate management of their problems and to give healthy life style advice proactively," Krul and her colleagues write.

SOURCE: Annals of Family Medicine, July/August 2009.