Are obesity and IQ connected?

Harvard Professor John Ratey, MD Psychiatrist, discusses how a child's health and brain development are connected and how obesity may lead to a child having a lower IQ
Are Obesity and IQ Interrelated In Children - Kids In The House
KidsInTheHouse the Ultimate Parenting Resource
Kids in the House Tour

Are obesity and IQ connected?

Comment
51
Like
51
Transcription: 
We know so much today about the problems of obesity and overweight and its affect on children's brains and its development. One study showed that children that at the age of four who were morbidly obese compared to their normal weight siblings had an IQ point difference of 30 points. This was an original study done in 2005 and it was repeated again in 2009 where they had doubled the number of children in the study and the results held. So just by being overweight and obese, you risk the fact of giving your kids less of an IQ, less intellectual function to deal with their learning and the rest of their lives.

Harvard Professor John Ratey, MD Psychiatrist, discusses how a child's health and brain development are connected and how obesity may lead to a child having a lower IQ

Transcript

Expert Bio

More from Expert

John Ratey, MD

Psychiatrist & Author

John J Ratey, MD, is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Research Synthesizer, Speaker, and Author, as well a Clinical Psychiatrist maintaining a private practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has lectured and published 60 peer reviewed articles on the topics of Aggression, Autism, ADHD, and other issues in neuropsychiatry.

Dr. Ratey has authored A Users Guide to the Brain and co-authored Shadow Syndromes  with Catherine Johnson, PhD. From 1994 to 2005 he co-authored Driven to DistractionAnswers to Distraction and Delivered from Distraction with Edward Hallowell, MD. Additionally, he has edited several books including The Neuropsychiatry of Personality Disorders. Most recently, Dr. Ratey has penned, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain published by Little Brown. In Spark, Dr. Ratey guides the reader to an understanding of neurobiology and inspires the reader to reach for their potential, and embrace exercise that is crucial for the brain and body to operate at peak performance.

Spark is fueling a movement to re-engineer school practices and medical recommendations to establish curriculum, lifestyles and corporate practices based on scientific principles. Providing the scientific foundation and research data, Dr. Ratey has been drafted into the groundswell of those whose mission it is to revitalize schools, combat the obesity crisis, stave off the encroaching epidemic of Sedentarism, by returning to evolutionary principles of physical exercise and proper diet thereby combating syndrome X, the underlying causation of much chronic disease.

Each year since 1995, Dr. Ratey has been selected by his peers as one of the Best Doctors in America. In his dedication to changing the world, Dr. Ratey has founded The Ratey Institute whose mission is to broadcast life changing science and establish the best practice policies first in our school and then other organizations to reclaim human health.

Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, released in 2008, is the culmination of years of experience with the brain body connection, new research data, and the synthesis of biological sciences. Spark is revolutionizing how we see the human species. A call to return to our evolutionary roots; to get in sync with our metabolic design honed through eons of survival to optimize mental and physical health. 

More Parenting Videos from John Ratey, MD >
Enter your email to
download & subscribe
to our newsletter