Girls with obesity or overweight were more likely to see their general practitioner for a musculoskeletal consultation, according to a study published in Archives of Disease in Childhood.
“We previously published a systematic review investigating the longitudinal association between obesity and adverse musculoskeletal health,” Nicola Firman, MSC, a health data scientist at Queen Mary University of London, told Healio. “We found that there was a paucity of studies investigating the musculoskeletal health outcomes occurring during childhood. We therefore wanted to contribute to this gap in knowledge by conducting a study of anonymized, linked school measurement and health records.”
Data derived from: Firman N, et al. Arch Dis Child. 2024;doi: 10.1136/archdischild-2023-326407.
Firman and colleagues assessed a cohort of youth from the National Child Measurement Programme who were divided into two subgroups — those aged 4 to 5 years (n = 63,418) and those aged 10 to 11 years (n = 55,364).
Overall, 3% of younger participants and 8.1% of older participants had at least one musculoskeletal consultation.
The researchers found that girls with a BMI in the overweight (HR = 1.24; 95% CI, 1.02-1.52) or obese (HR = 1.67; 95% CI, 1.35-2.06) category in the younger cohort had an increased likelihood of at least one musculoskeletal consultation.
In the older cohort, girls with a BMI in the obese category (HR = 1.2; 95% CI, 1.07-1.35) were more likely to have at least one musculoskeletal consultation, whereas boys with BMI in the underweight range were less likely (HR = 0.39; 95% CI, 0.21-0.73).
“We were surprised that we only found this association among girls, and not boys,” Firman explained. “We are unsure why this was the case and would benefit from more research in a different population, to see if this finding is replicated elsewhere.”
The most commonly recorded musculoskeletal symptoms and diagnoses were related to the knee and back.
Firman pointed out that the study has implications for health policy, and that a focus should be placed “on population-level prevention programs which support and empower families.”
She also added that the findings show the value of linking school measurement and electronic health record data for research.
“While not designed for research purposes, [EHRs] are a rich source of health data, are relatively inexpensive, and potentially less biased given the near-universal nature of enrollment into general practice in the National Health Service,” she said.
