Overweight pre-teens may have less ability to think logically: study

By Jim Leffman via SWNS

Overweight pre-teens are less able to solve problems and think logically compared to their lighter peers, a new study from Boston Children's Hospital reveals.

Those with a high Body Mass Index (BMI) had different brain structures, circuits and cognitive performance than kids with a normal BMI.

The team from Boston Children's Hospital studied nearly 5,000 nine to 10-year-olds at 21 sites across the United States.

Published in the International Journal of Obesity, the research found that in pre-teens with excess BMI brain circuits supporting higher-level cognitive functions, reward, emotional processing, and attention were found to be organized less efficiently, less well connected and less resilient.

It manifested as a lower ability to think logically and solve problems in new settings.

Whilst researchers couldn't prove that a high BMI caused the differing brain functions they could say there was a 'significant' association between the two compared to pre-teens with regular BMI.

Study leader Dr. Caterina Stamoulis, a researcher in Adolescent Medicine and director of the Computational Neuroscience Laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital, finds the association concerning.

She said: “It raises an alarm that it’s important to track adolescents’ brain health, especially when they have excess BMI."

“Early adolescence is a time when the brain is very actively developing, and when frontal areas of the brain, those involved in higher cognitive functions, change enormously and are vulnerable to miswiring.”

The differences were consistent even after adjusting for factors like sleep duration, screen time, physical activity, depression, and self-worth related to weight that may affect both BMI and brain health.

Further planned research includes a two-year follow-up to see what happens to children's brains over time.

Dr. Stamoulis added: “Once the brain is done wiring, it’s more difficult to intervene.

“We want to see what neurodevelopmental trajectories these youth are on.”