Impaired quality of life in treatment-seeking obese children of Dutch, Moroccan, Turkish and Surinamese descent.

<bold>Objective: </bold>To determine the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of overweight and obese multi-ethnic children compared with normal-weight children; and to investigate differences in HRQOL between self- and parent-proxy reports and ethnic groups.<bold>Design: </bold>Prospective cross-sectional study.<bold>Setting: </bold>Out-patient clinic where children and their parents filled out a validated HRQOL questionnaire (KIDSCREEN-52) and height, weight, waist circumference and fat percentage were measured.<bold>Subjects: </bold>Overweight and obese children, aged 8-18 years (mean BMI Z-score 3·2 (sd 0·6)), from the obesity out-patient clinic.<bold>Results: </bold>Three hundred and eight self- and 213 parent-proxy reported questionnaires were completed. Global HRQOL and the Physical Wellbeing, Moods & Emotions and Self-Perception subscales were markedly reduced in our multi-ethnic obese cohort, relative to the Dutch reference values. Parent proxies reported significantly lower on the global HRQOL and the Physical Wellbeing, Moods & Emotions and Bullying subscales. In Caucasian children, multivariate analyses showed that BMI was associated with the quality-of-life subscales Moods & Emotions, Self-Perception and Bullying.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>HRQOL was markedly reduced in our multi-ethnic overweight and obese out-patient clinic cohort, with significantly lower parent-proxy scores compared with self-reported scores. We believe intervention programmes aiming to improve HRQOL should be directed to both parents and children, while ethnic-specific programmes to enhance HRQOL seem of less importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]