Obese kids get the blues earlier

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-15 16:55

As early as kindergarten, kids who are overweight feel more lonely and anxious than their normal-weight peers, new research shows.

And for both boys and girls who are persistently overweight from kindergarten through third grade, these feelings of depression, anxiety and loneliness get worse over time, according to Dr Sara Gable of the University of Missouri in Columbia and her colleagues.

"I think there's a tendency to believe that boys don't experience those consequences until later," Gable says. "These findings suggest that they are experiencing some of these negative consequences earlier than may have been believed."