A new study conducted in the U.S. found that the children who suffer from migraine headaches are 36% more likely to be either overweight or obese. But researchers were not at all surprised by the research findings because earlier studies have linked migraine headaches to obesity in adults also. Read on to know more about how overweight children are more prone to migraines.
According to Dr. Andrew D. Hershey, this figure tells us that overweight or obese condition may induce more headaches, prominently headaches in kids. There may be several causes which include nutrition, lack of exercise, body stress and a overall poorer health condition. It may not be a direct cause of migraine, but reasons for being overweight may cause these kids to have severe headaches.
About the Study
Researchers analyzed 440 children who belonged to the age group of 3-18. These children already went to one of seven pediatric headache centers. Nearly 91% were diagnosed with severe migraine headaches of the entire population. Also, around 9% had reported other forms of headaches.
Nearly 15.5% of the U.S. children are either considered obese or overweight and over 21% of children, who were surveyed in this study, have headache were found to be overweight. The severity of this headaches were examined by calculating them using a scale.
The Study Findings
On this scale, a score that lies between 30 to 50 indicated moderate problem due to headache. Overweight children had an average score of 41.9, children at the risk of being overweight were 42.9 and normal weight children had a score of 28.7. This result was presented at the annual meet of the American Headache Society located in Los Angeles.
