Overweight or obese teenager girls are at a significant greater risk of developing acne compared with their normal-weight peers, a Norwegian study says.
Acne is a skin condition that causes whiteheads, blackheads, and inflamed red growths to form. Acne is most common among teenagers and three out of four adolescents have some. It can, however, happen at any age, even in an infant.
Hormonal changes which increase oil in the skin may be probably involved in the development of the condition.
An interview with about 3,600 Norwegian adolescents showed that girls with a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or higher were more likely to have acne.
According to the results, 13 percent of the studied girls had the skin condition, while the rate was 19 percent among those who were overweight or obese.
There was no significant difference between overweight and normal-weight boys, however, Dr. Jon Anders Halvorsen and colleagues at the University of Oslo wrote in the Archives of Dermatology.
The study just showed an association between extra weight in girls and higher risk of developing acne, a finding that doesn't show any cause and effect relation.
The research was not designed to detect the effects of possible biological and hormonal differences between overweight girls and their normal weight counterparts.
Some experts, however, suggest that some self-image concepts may lead overweight girls to report their condition worse than it really was.
