According to a new study from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, overweight children are more likely than their leaner peers to suffer from headaches - but if they lose weight, the headaches lessen or go away.

Dr. Andrew Hershey studied 913 children for six months, and found that the more overweight a child is, the more frequent and painful his headaches are. Some of the children had painful headaches as often as every other day.

Dr. Hershey said he believes that the cause of such headaches may be low levels of leptin, a hormone that makes people feel full after eating. Since overweight children often do not drink enough water, dehydration may be another culprit in their headaches, he said. A third possible cause is stress due to social pressures, such as teasing, bullying or being criticized, he said.

This study appears in the journal Headache.

Labels: childhood_obesity, headaches, studies

A study has found a strong link between overweight/obesity and headaches in children. The study followed 913 children for six months.

"Adult obesity already has been tied to headaches, so helping kids get into the normal weight range could prevent years of pain and disability...Chronic headaches are common in childhood, with surveys suggesting they're experienced by anywhere from one out of four to one in 10 kids... But the overweight children who had lost weight three months after their first visit reported about half as many headaches as the heavy kids who continued to gain weight."

Though several different factors could cause the headaches - everything from dehydration to the stress of being teased - kids with headaches are less physically active, which can lead to a continued cycle of obesity and deteriorating health. Source: USA Today

Labels: headaches, health_care, pain