Introduction Obesity is common metabolic disorder in children, but little information is available about quality of life (QoL) and other aspects of their well being in overweight compare with obese children.

Methods For this purpose we assessed QoL, the level of personal, reactive anxiety and depression in obese and overweight children. Results were compared with healthy control children. All children were asked to complete the adopted SF-36 questionnaire, the Scales of personal (PA) and reactive anxiety (RA) (Spilberger’s test) and Depression Scale.

Results We studied 60 obese children – the 1^st group (body mass index (BMI) 27.5±1.24) and 65 overweight children – the 2^nd group (BMI 23.6±1.09). 30 children were taken as a control group (BMI 18.4±1.41). QoL in overweight and obese children were significantly lower as compared to healthy children (56.04±18.13–1 group and 52.96±23.32–2 group vs. 86.92±11.8, p<0.01). The more important deviations were found in terms of impairment in emotional and physical role functioning in obese children, whereas in overweight children – in social functioning. The mean values of scale in PA and RA anxiety were higher in children with metabolic disorders than in healthy ones and increase with increasing BMI: PA 46.45±9.95 (1 group) and 42.74±9.17 (2 group) vs. 32.59±8,03, p<0.001 and 41.79±9.05 vs 38.04±7.75 vs 218±7.26 (p<0.001).

The same tendency was found according to the Depression Scale (52.66±7.07 and 50.59±5.99 vs. 32.54±8.02, p<0.001).

Conclusion Quality of life of children with metabolic disorders (overweight and obesity) is significantly reduced as compared to healthy children and associated with persistent psychological problems. Normalisation of psychological parameters may improve the efficacy of current therapeutic strategies of these groups of patients and restore the quality of life.