08/25/2026
Credit: NPR for this post.
"For decades, ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, was considered a childhood disease that mostly affected boys – and boys were the focus of most research, says Julia Schechter, a clinical psychologist and co-director of the Duke Center for Girls and Women with ADHD. But ADHD often manifests differently in girls.
"They're more likely to appear distracted, disorganized, kind of have their head in the clouds rather than show that overt, hyperactive or impulsive behavior that can disrupt a classroom," Schechter says.
She says those symptoms in girls are easier to miss. That's one reason why girls tend to get diagnosed years later than boys, often not until adulthood. Instead, women will spend years wondering what's wrong with them, being treated for anxiety or depression without addressing the underlying cause.
"Sometimes those conditions are truly present," Schechter says. "Other times they're secondary to years of undiagnosed and untreated ADHD."
There is a cost to those years of missed treatment. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition that influences many aspects of a person's life and can bring challenges with social relationships, impulse control and low self-esteem.
And there are other health risks for women, including a higher incidence of obesity, eating disorders, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease than their peers without the condition, says Dr. Patricia Quinn, a developmental pediatrician who has specialized in ADHD in women and girls for decades. She says several factors linked to ADHD can contribute to these risks. They include impulsivity, trouble sleeping, an inability to maintain healthy routines, the chronic stress of living with unmanaged symptoms and poor food choices driven by the need to seek dopamine."
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