ABSTRACT
Hormonal activities are essential for the maintenance of normal body composition. Disturbances in hormonal secretion and clearance have often been considered as the main causes of increased body fatness, particularly in those who are very obese. However, primary hormonal abnormalities such as Cushing syndrome are very rare. Many studies in growing children with very different approaches have simultaneously monitored hormonal levels, metabolic parameters, and their mutual associations with obesity characteristics. Most
of the features that characterize obesity and relate to hormonal function are considered to be secondary and may have resulted from a change in overall metabolic status of an obese individual. Comparative studies involving children are difficult to interpret as mentioned previously. This difficulty is further compounded by the differentials in level of sexual maturation (often not assessed) in the young people being studied. In summary, efforts to compare and generalize the results from individual studies, often conducted under completely different sets of conditions, could result in spurious conclusions.
