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Childhood obesity is spreading across the world very fast. Although initial data showed it as a problem of affluence, both developed and developing countries are almost equally affected with the epidemic. It is well known that obesity predisposes both children and adults to several serious disease conditions that can be life threatening. However, in addition to that, data are emerging that obesity predisposes children to develop an array of functional gastrointestinal diseases (FGIDs). Recently, Phatak and Pashankar1 have published an eye opening article to establish the relationship between obesity in children and FGIDs. They have recruited 450 children from 3 paediatric and adolescent clinics in Yale, USA. Children and their parents were interviewed using the standard Rome III questionnaire for children/adolescents. Medical records of these children were comprehensively reviewed to obtain information regarding data on demography and growth indices. Their data show an alarmingly high prevalence of obesity/overweight (42%). Functional abdominal pain syndrome (FAPS) (OR, 2.1; 95% CI, 1.21?3.64; P = 0.007), functional constipation (FC) (OR, 1.83; 95% CI, 1.12?2.98; P = 0.01) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) (OR, 2.59; 95% CI, 1.40?4.79; P = 0.003) were noted to be significantly more prevalent in the obese/overweight children. Of the obese/overweight children, 47% had at least one functional gastrointestinal disorder compared with 27% of the normal weight children (P < 0.001).
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