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Underweight and overweight cases among the mentally retarded
Author(s) -
SIMILA S.,
NISKANEN P.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
journal of intellectual disability research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.941
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1365-2788
pISSN - 0964-2633
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2788.1991.tb01046.x
Subject(s) - mentally retarded , underweight , overweight , body mass index , pediatrics , medicine , obesity , population , demography , intelligence quotient , psychology , psychiatry , developmental psychology , cognition , environmental health , sociology
. The body mass index (BMI) was calculated at the age of 20 for all the 132 survivors (83%) out of the 159 mentally retarded individuals born in 1966 in Northern Finland. Reliable information was acquired for 112 cases (84.8%). The mean BMI for these cases did not deviate significantly from that for an average Finnish population at age 20‐29 years. It was found that 41.5% of the slightly retarded cases (IQ 35‐70) and 28‐6% of the seriously retarded ones (IQ<35) were of ideal weight (BMI 20‐24), while 9‐8% of all the retarded individuals were moderately obese (BMI>30) and 7‐1% seriously so (BMIS32). Ninety‐one per cent of the seriously obese cases lived with their parents and did not participate in any occupational therapy or work. A total of 29‐5% of the mentally retarded subjects were underweight (BMI<20), a condition which would seem to be above all a problem for seriously retarded individuals and an obvious consequence of the different feeding and dietary problems connected with their multiple disabilities.