Although awareness and recognition of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have increased over the past few decades, particularly through the pandemic years, its effects are still trivialized in the public discourse. The core symptoms are brushed off as stereotyped nuisances of flitting attention, bouncing legs, and misjudged spontaneity, and more exotic but similarly misleading characterizations and “look squirrel” memes that provide clickbait on social media. These misrepresentations create an image of an ADHD diagnosis as divorced from “real-life problems.”

More recent studies continue to shed light on the seriousness of ADHD. The problems are hiding in plain sight, arising early on and persisting and worsening in adulthood in terms of health profiles and life expectancy for individuals with ADHD. There’s no “look diabetes” or “look hypertension” ADHD memes.

A British study tracked more than 17,000 children born in the same week in 1970 for the next 46 years (just under 11,000 participants met criteria for the analyses in the current study).1 In 1980, at 10 years old, 5.5 percent of the sample were identified with ADHD traits using results from parent/teacher ratings that were subsequently adapted to current diagnostic criteria. Follow-up health measures started at 26 years old and continued up to 46 years old.

At 46 years old, childhood ADHD traits were associated with more........

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