Norris, T, Hawton, K, Hamilton-Shield, J et al. · Archives of disease in childhood · 2017 · DOI
This study looked at whether adolescents with ME/CFS are more likely to be overweight or obese than young people without the condition. Researchers compared teenagers attending specialist ME/CFS clinics with healthy teenagers from a large population study. They found that adolescents with severe ME/CFS (those referred to specialist services) had higher rates of obesity, particularly by age 16.
Understanding the relationship between ME/CFS and obesity is important because obesity may complicate ME/CFS management, affect symptom severity, or represent a significant comorbidity requiring integrated clinical approaches. This finding highlights the need for weight-aware care in adolescent ME/CFS populations.
This study cannot establish whether obesity causes ME/CFS, whether ME/CFS causes weight gain, or whether both conditions share a common mechanism—it only demonstrates they co-occur more frequently in severely affected adolescents. The study also cannot exclude confounding factors or explain why the association strengthens with age. Selection bias may be present, as adolescents referred to specialist services likely represent more severe cases.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Norris, T, Hawton, K, Hamilton-Shield, J, & Crawley, E (2017). Obesity in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome: an observational study.. Archives of disease in childhood. https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2016-311293
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-norris-2017-obesity-adolescents,
author = {Norris, T and Hawton, K and Hamilton-Shield, J and Crawley, E},
title = {Obesity in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome: an observational study.},
journal = {Archives of disease in childhood},
year = {2017},
doi = {10.1136/archdischild-2016-311293},
note = {PubMed: 27655658},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/norris-2017-obesity-adolescents},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/norris-2017-obesity-adolescents
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