"Although awareness and recognition of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder ( ADHD) have increased over the past few decades, particularly through the pandemic years, its effects are still trivialized in the public discourse. The core symptoms are brushed off as stereotyped nuisances of flitting attention, bouncing legs, and misjudged spontaneity, and more exotic but similarly misleading characterizations and "look squirrel" memes that provide clickbait on social media. These misrepresentations create an image of an ADHD diagnosis as divorced from "real-life problems.""
"A British study tracked more than 17,000 children born in the same week in 1970 for the next 46 years (just under 11,000 participants met criteria for the analyses in the current study). 1 In 1980, at 10 years old, 5.5 percent of the sample were identified with ADHD traits using results from parent/teacher ratings that were subsequently adapted to current diagnostic criteria. Follow-up health measures started at 26 years old and continued up to 46 years old."
Awareness of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder increased in recent decades, yet effects remain trivialized and reduced to memes and stereotypes. Core symptoms often appear as nuisances, obscuring serious lifelong consequences. A British birth cohort of children born in 1970 was followed into midlife; 5.5 percent showed ADHD traits at age ten, with health follow-up from age 26 to 46. Childhood ADHD traits were linked to greater physical health problems, higher multimorbidity risk, and disability by midlife. Associated outcomes include smoking, increased BMI, substance use, diabetes, and chronic respiratory disease. Targeting self-dysregulation through medical and psychosocial treatment can improve adult ADHD health outcomes.
Read at Psychology Today
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