There is a big difference between being diagnosed with ADHD and having ADHD.
ADHD is a developmental disorder. It’s not caused by a lack of exercise. Exercise may mitigate symptoms.
ADHD diagnosis in children has way too much to do with how obnoxious adults find the child and too little to do with whether or not the child has ADHD. Everyone knows that all children benefit from exercise. Obviously a population of children that don’t get much exercise is going to have more obnoxious behavior than a population that gets exercise, but that doesn’t mean the rate of ADHD is different in the two populations.
Children with ADHD who aren’t obnoxious and are undiagnosed still struggle. Girls are under diagnosed because they’re not as likely to be obnoxious, but they still struggle.
As a woman with ADHD (diagnosed at 14) — thank you. 🙌🙌🙌
There are unfortunately many people that just accept every article on the internet to be true. There are articles online that claim essential oils can help treat kids with autism but that doesn't make it true.
Good point about obnoxious behavior getting noticed. I think a lot of false diagnosis falls under that umbrella.
And also yes, the quiet kids who are struggling are easy to ignore.
I’m going to be real here. I don’t think it has to do with ADHD. I think it has to do with tablet use.
Parents today hand their children tablets when they’re babies, I have seen a literal baby in a back carrier with a phone. Then they wonder why their child doesn’t have an attention span and can’t focus and can’t learn and can’t self regulate. Obviously children whose parents emphasize outdoor play or play in general more than tablet or screen time have children who are better behaved. Duh.
Don’t say “but my child needs the tablet to self regulate”. Only because that’s what you taught them to do. That’s the only reason.
not just tablet use either but the whole way media and society has changed. Everyone's attention span (including mine) is so ruined now, 20 years ago we probably would all have been diagnosed with ADHD.
Yep. I don’t have any kind of ADHD diagnosis and while I’ve had some symptoms my whole life, even when I barely used electronics at all, I’m at my worst the more I use my phone and social media. It has a serious effect on me and I bet other neurotypical people as well.
Ugh. If only everything was that simple, child psychiatrists would be out of a job.
I'm 27, I have ADHD, and I'm also an avid exerciser. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid and took Adderall until I was 12. I got straight As at school and was at the top of the class. I was in sports my whole life, but shockingly it didn't fix my ADHD or the long spell of depression I had during high school and college. Weirdly enough, this was also the time period where I did not medicate my ADHD, and my grades were starting to slip. I literally did 10 fucking years of martial arts and earned my black belt in high school, but I was still a mess when it came time to get my brain to settle down and focus. In addition, I had awful emotional regulation problems that cropped up, and honestly, college was the darkest time of my life. I couldn't even focus on things I enjoyed, couldn't make friends, and just became really isolated and embarrassed of my shortcomings. I abused substances to numb the depression and feelings of inadequacy and that almost got me into some serious trouble.
Now I LOVE exercise and preach the benefits to everyone I know until I'm blue in the face, but I'm also really tired of the whole "you don't need medication, just exercise and eat healthy and you'll be FINE!" narrative everyone keeps trying to push for seemingly every mental health issue. Everyone should exercise, yeah, but that's just one piece of the puzzle. Adderall has helped me focus and stay on track in my life than anything else I've tried, and I'm at the most stable place in my life right now because of it.I don't even really drink anymore, thanks to Adderall regulating my need to seek constant high-level stimulation. I'm finally at a place in my life where I feel strong, healthy, and happy.
It's just... really simplistic to think mental health issues are both caused by and cured by lifestyle choices, and articles like these once again make me ashamed that I have ADHD and have to take a stimulant to maintain my life.I thought we were finally getting to a place where maybe Adderall and the people who actually need it like myself were no longer so harshly stigmatized, but I guess not. Just my two cents.
Also a 27 year old with ADHD, except I wasn't diagnosed until 24 due to having the inattentive presentation and doing well enough in school to go under the radar. I grew up as a competitive dancer, spending almost every day after school in ballet or tap or jazz or modern dance, sometimes multiple classes back to back. Many of my cousins (who pretty much all played sports) and both of my siblings, (including my brother who was always playing a sport or playing pickup basketball or soccer games with neighborhood kids) also have ADHD. All that exercise didn't make us not have ADHD because that's not the underlying cause of an actual ADHD diagnosis. It was in our gene pool.
Getting diagnosed literally changed my life. I used to only be able to get anything done if I felt under immense pressure to do it. Homework got done, enough that I took like 5 AP classes in high school and got a physics degree without knowing I had ADHD. But I only managed to stay on task if 1. someone else was making me or 2. the adrenaline from procrastinating until the last minute finally made my brain cooperate. It was less 'I work well under pressure,' and more 'I ONLY work under pressure.' It caused me so much grief and anxiety, I used to get so frustrated with myself I'd end up crying because I couldn't make myself focus. With stimulants, I can even do the dishes and fold my laundry without my brain wanting to rebel. That's such a small thing, but people without ADHD will never understand what a big difference that is for me. My depression also resolved itself once I started stimulants. Almost like that was caused by the ADHD the whole time and that was what I needed to be treated for.
That being said, I do think exercise does help us a lot. It's not enough alone, but I definitely notice a huge difference between when I'm active or when I've been slacking with my exercise even on my meds. But exercise alone only does so much to help. It's better than not exercising, but it's not going to make someone who does have ADHD not have it.
I think if anything this study just shows that ADHD is still diagnosed less on how it affects the ADHD person and more how it affects those around us. So people like me who were never really disruptive in school but still struggled in many unseen ways don't realize until we're in adulthood that that's what's going on, whereas some hyperactive kids in elementary school just need to be allowed to run around in the backyard at home for like an hour each afternoon, and maybe they'd be less disruptive in class. It sucks that instead of coming away from studies like this with the idea that maybe there needs to be adjustments made in how ADHD is diagnosed and that there's still more to learn about the disorder, people will just think its proof ADHD doesn't even exist. I think it's entirely true that it's overdiagnosed in certain populations, like young boys who can't sit still in class, while still being a real disorder that does greatly impact those of us that have it. Those are not mutually exclusive statements.
I was only prescribed adderall in adulthood (childhood autism diagnosis at a time you didn't get diagnosed with both.) and before I started taking it I thought that the people who said exercise and diet made a difference in how you feel were **liars ** I was also in dance (not competitive, but the classes still took up hours of my time every evening. then I came home and walked the dog for at least an hour.) My family never watched TV. I spent most of my childhood outside. When I was a teenager we had a single computer that the family shared. I ate healthily - we only had fast food if we were traveling, which was maybe three times a year. I went through a period in adulthood of very obsessively keeping track of what I ate to be sure it was healthy and exercising religiously in the hopes it would make a difference. I could never tell any difference whatsoever.
now that I'm medicated? I can tell. It was a huge shock when I first realized that finally exercise and diet are able to make a difference in how well I function. but they only make a noticeable difference when I'm medicated.
It would be much less expensive for me if the diet and exercise worked for me on their own...
ADHD is still diagnosed less on how it affects the ADHD person and more how it affects those around us
Yes. I have inattentive ADHD and wasn't diagnosed until adulthood after years and years of struggle. My cousins had / have hyperactive ADHD and were diagnosed and medicated young.
My older child probably has inattentive ADHD but was not diagnosed via an expensive screening. The evaluator did not ask about said child's experiences or look for patterns in behavior or problems in classroom environments. She observed the child in a single novel situation--a testing environment--in a way that would not imo reveal whether inattentive ADHD was present.
It took me a long time to understand that information continually slipping away like wriggling goldfish and desperate levels of disorganization, continual daydreaming, and hyperfocusing are not ordinary human experiences. I have no idea how anyone could have tested me for this as a child tbh. If anything, in an evaluation scenario I would have looked compliant and even a little bit brilliant.
Now I LOVE exercise and preach the benefits to everyone I know until I'm blue in the face, but I'm also really tired of the whole "you don't need medication, just exercise and eat healthy and you'll be FINE!" narrative everyone keeps trying to push for seemingly every mental health issue.
What you are saying is absolutely an issue. I think these studies tend to get treated as if the problems mentioned are 'cured' by the associated actions outlined in the study, which of course implies that they are 'caused' by the lack of these actions.
The other problem is using the wrong 'cure' on those who do not have the problem. Prescribing medication to children who are not ADHD but who are lacking in any meaningful expression of pent up energy. These are the one that 'surprise' get 'cured' by exercise.
Our capacity for proper diagnosis of things - especially mental health issues is lacking in so many ways.
I can’t upvote this enough.
The things that help the most are physical and creative outlets and one on one attention and tutoring. Drugs produce a superficial boost to academic performance, and appear to “regulate behavior”, but don’t actually help anyone grow and develop past their difficulties. Drugs also cause and come with a lot of problems and negative effects, both with immediate negative effects and with long term development and dependency.
I strongly feel that children (both boys and girls) are hugely over diagnosed and over prescribed with powerful stimulant medication pushed by a large, powerful, influential, greedy industry. I don’t trust any sources claiming that any group is under diagnosed. They are simply trying to expand their market. They love to target their “quick behavioral fix” and “performance boosting drugs” to parents who push their ambitions onto their kids as well, yet lack the time to properly parent them.
I was a victim to this trend of drugging up difficult, restless, and rowdy kids near its original peak in the early 90s. I was in first grade when they signed me up for these mind changing pills. I didn’t know who I was. I was only six when they took over and altered me. High on pills, on prescription dose, I became socially dissociated at school. Emotionally numbed. Robotic.
After school it wears off and I’m worse than ever. Totally volatile. Mental and emotional withdrawals. I didn’t understand why I was like this. I had no idea how to self manage or regulate. The pills did it for me most of the time, until it wore off in the evening when it left me haywire. I lived like this for over a decade before I became wise to it and quit. For a long time I didn’t know any different.
It was hell.
In addition to holding back my social and emotional development, it also managed to stunt my physical development and delay my puberty. It wasn’t until senior year of high school when I secretly stopped taking the pills that I suddenly developed and stopped looking like I was 12. I’m tall now, but still the most chronically thin and small boned of all my sisters. Despite my height, I still feel like an underdeveloped runt.
My grades suffered a bit, and the anxiety was horrible for weeks after, but I was much happier, and I was finally myself. Once I was off the pills for a while, the anxiety subsided. My struggles with self motivation and depression lasted longer. The pills had damaged my dopamine system. I worked hard to improve myself and grow naturally. It was extremely difficult, but my grades did eventually bounce back.
I never needed the pills. I needed to live, learn, and grow. I needed to harness my natural energy and utilize it. I needed to make friends and be social. I needed love and attention. Not pills. Not drugs. Not dependency, dissociation, and problems. Just time, effort, and goals. I needed hope in the future, and belief in my ability to overcome. I needed acceptance of my differences, my limitations, my weaknesses, and of where I am now, and to be acknowledged of my strengths and where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to grow.
Adults should be more than welcome to boost their own performance with any safe stimulant of their choice at important intervals, but targeting kids with this shit is just rooted in an industry trying to set people up with an insurmountable dependency. I cannot see it any other way.
But ADHD is often linked with ASD and children definitely have that from birth
I'm interested to see how the COVID lock downs will affect the prevalence of ADHD among certain age groups. Will it be higher since everybody kept their kids mostly indoors and away from people?
One of the worries about diagnosis in Psychology - people get stuck on their diagnosis and it prevents them from getting better, because the diagnosis becomes a part of their identity.
Do the symptoms exist? Yes - but is our explanation for the symptoms correct? This is much more in line with what I've experienced:
There are some instances in which attention symptoms are severe enough that patients truly need help. Over the course of my career, I have found more than 20 conditions that can lead to symptoms of ADHD, each of which requires its own approach to treatment. Among these are sleep disorders, undiagnosed vision and hearing problems, substance abuse (marijuana and alcohol in particular), iron deficiency, allergies (especially airborne and gluten intolerance), bipolar and major depressive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and even learning disabilities like dyslexia, to name a few. Anyone with these issues will fit the ADHD criteria outlined by the DSM, but stimulants are not the way to treat them.
Goes on to give a long list of reasons why we shouldn't give people stimulants.
https://time.com/25370/doctor-adhd-does-not-exist/
A lot of the debate is around how to diagnose/treat people with the symptoms.
This came from the ongoing study here: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/
Although this talks about children I don't see how this would not apply to any age human.
The problem is there is now actual adhd and diagnosed adhd due to pressure from “mombies” to get special privileges for their unparented, unsocialized little dick head child.
I’m sure exercise is good for the latter group, because it’s actually structure and typically with some authority. So of course that makes little Bratleigh behave better
This comment rubs me the wrong way. What is actual ADHD? It is just a clinical term for kids and adults who are different in a particular set of ways, who share certain strengths and weaknesses. It can be caused by nature or nurture, and is often a combination of both when it is significant enough to be clinically recognized. This can also be seen in scans. Nature and nurture shape the mind, and the mind is always changing, especially for kids.
I was always especially restless and noisy, even as a baby. I wasn’t a spoiled brat. I was high energy. I was abused, and neglected. My mother and father worked full time. She resented me into my childhood for being a difficult infant. My mom was highly controlling. My day was strictly structured. She had very high, and very specific, expectations of us. It was oppressive. Stifling. Suffocating. Maddening. Frustrating.
In addition to my natural restlessness, I was smarter and more rebellious and opinionated than the other kids. I saw how adults failed me left and right. I lost a certain amount of faith in them sooner then most. This made me difficult to handle for adults who are used to blindly obedient, normal kids. The drugs were an “easy fix” for all of them. It relieved them of their adult responsibility to guide and work with me, and I paid for it.
I was a child.
I could not give informed consent to what these mind altering drugs would do to me. They damaged me. They changed me. All before I even knew who I was. I was forced to make a choice I could not begin to understand for years to come. It was wrong when they did it to me, and when they did it to all my friends who I met later in life with similar stories. It’s a practice that needs to be totally re-evaluated.
Amphetamines for kids. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. The irony is that my mom was aware of how caffeine is bad for the minds of developing kids and can cause dependency and other issues. So, she strictly forbade us to have even small amounts of it all the way through high school.
Drugs like this for kids.. It’s insane. It needs to stop. Let kids grow out of it. Let them choose if they want these pills when they are older and more developed. Find other treatments. Drugs are not the best, or only, answer for mental and behavioral issues. There are way better long term options with way fewer drawbacks, even if they have less instantly powerful results on test scores and such.
*Downvote, but no reply in response to this does nothing to help anyone. What is your issue with my statement? I am simply telling my personal experience and opinions as someone who actually lived through it. I am sorry if me sharing my experience bothers you. It isn't comfortable or easy for me either. I would love to have a proper discussion on this so we can understand each other better.
**Yeah, trying to shut me down with silent votes still isn't going to help. My mother doesn’t like to hear it either when I tell her how this affected me. She doesn’t want to feel guilty or wrong in her choices. I know she isn’t perfect, and she wanted the best for me, so I’ve forgiven her, but she still can’t face the guilt or admit she was wrong to do it. It still needs to be said.
As I've mentioned in other posts, life on the medication was awful. It sucked all the joy from my life and set back my social and emotional development more than anything. I am much happier now that I have been off the pills for years and have worked hard to find other ways to cope and improve myself. Recovery after being on the pills so young and for so long was also hell. It was long and difficult breaking free from such a dependency. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. If I can save anyone from the same fate just by writing about my experience, then it’s worth it.
I couldn’t find anything in the article that actually supported the headline. The only findings discussed in the article are these:
I believe all of those findings to be true, and that exercise can help to relieve some of the symptoms of ADHD, but that does not support the statement that exercise “slashes…risk of ADHD”. In fact, the article does not indicate that the researchers made ANY mention of ADHD, let alone commented on the “risk factor” of ADHD. If your headline states that the risk factor was “slashed”, wouldn’t you want to provide the supporting metric, or any evidence of it at all?
Every reference to ADHD in the article pertains to the increase in Adderall diagnoses/prescriptions, and refers to it as a “behavioral issue”, when it is in fact a neurological disorder that may or may not result in behavioral issues.
It seems to me that the author incorrectly extrapolated the actual findings to support her own pre-existing beliefs about ADHD and medications, and presented her opinion as fact. Poorly written article all around.
I agree. Well said.