Adam Levine ADHD
With a new PSA for the "Own It" campaign, Maroon 5 vocalist Adam Levine joins the chorus calling for better awareness, acceptance, and treatment of ADHD.
Let's be clear: Levine was paid to appear in the TV campaign by Shire Pharmaceuticals, the company that sells Adderall. However, it has been widely reported across the country. That's what happens when you're a Victoria's Secret model and the "Sexiest Man Alive."
"When I was first diagnosed with ADHD, it wasn't a surprise because I had difficulties focusing in high school," the Voice mentor, 34, told Us magazine. And I believe that as an adult, people are more aware of my ADHD.
"I can't pay attention while I'm not paying attention."
Levine isn't hesitant about endorsing products—endorsed he's guitars, trousers, leather jackets, fragrances, and acne medication, to name a few. And he's willing to put it all on the line for a cause he believes in. In a Cosmo UK campaign in 2011, he appeared naked to raise awareness for prostate and testicular cancer.
Still, it's encouraging to see Levine admit that he had ADHD as a child and that he didn't outgrow it, as more than a third of children do.
"It was harming my work the way it had impacted me in school," he wrote in a previous piece for ADDitude magazine, so he went to the doctor and discovered he still had ADHD.
And that's the advise he gives others in the new video: go visit a doctor if you think you have a problem. To help you decide, there's a quiz included with the film, which we're informed was created by PsychCentral.