Incidence of obesity was determined for a sample of 337 mentally retarded children drawn from a population attending a large urban school system. An obese condition was identified in over 22 percent of the sample. Presence of obesity was not related significantly to sex, age, mental retardation level or race. Based on available comparative data, obesity does show a higher incidence among retarded children than nonretarded children. The present sample closely resembled the population from which it was selected allowing some generalization of the findings.
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