Division of Pediatrics, Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: emilia.hagman@ki.se.
Childhood obesity represents a social burden. This study aims to investigate whether achieved educational level differs in young adults who have suffered obesity in childhood compared with the general population and to determine how obesity treatment influences achieved educational level.
This prospective cohort study includes subjects from the Swedish Childhood Obesity Treatment Registry (BORIS, n = 1,465) who were followed up after 20 years of age. They were compared with a randomly selected matched population-based group (n = 6,979). Achieved educational level was defined as =12 years in school (completers). Covariates include sex, migration background, and attention deficit disorders for both groups. Furthermore, age and degree of obesity at start of obesity treatment, treatment duration, and efficacy were analyzed in the obese cohort.
In the obese cohort, 55.4% were school completers, compared with 76.2% in the comparison group (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = .42, p