7 Pearls from New Pediatric Obesity Guidelines
Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines address the assessment, treatment, and prevention of child and teen obesity.
Obesity is a problem that nearly every nation in the world is facing, but there is much that we can do to fix it.-Richard Attias
1. A Childhood Concern That Affects Adult Health.
Pediatric obesity affects about 17% of US children and adolescents, threatens their adult health and longevity, and remains an ongoing serious international health concern.
2. Screening Logistics.
Screening for comorbidities of obesity should be applied in a hierarchical, logical manner for early identification before more costly complications result. Genetic screening for rare syndromes is indicated only in the presence of specific historical or physical features.
3. Mental Health Screening.
The psychological toll of pediatric obesity on the patient and family necessitates screening for mental health issues and, as indicated, counseling.
4. Living the Lifestyle.
Preventing pediatric obesity by promoting healthful diet, activity, and environment should be a primary goal. Achieving effective, long-lasting results with lifestyle modification is difficult once obesity occurs.
5. Limit Weight Loss Medications.
The use of weight loss medications during childhood and adolescence should be restricted to clinical trials.
6. Surgery as Last Resort.
Bariatric surgery is effective in the most seriously affected mature teenagers for whom lifestyle modification has not succeeded, but the use of surgery requires experienced teams with resources for long-term follow-up.
7. Transitioning to Adult Care.
Cohesive planning-with continued monitoring, support, and intervention-is needed to help adolescents who are undergoing lifestyle therapy, medication regimens, or bariatric surgery for obesity transition effectively to adult care.
Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for the assessment, treatment, and prevention of pediatric obesity have been released by the Endocrine Society as an update of earlier guidelines.Pediatric obesity is a persistent serious international health concern affecting about 17% of United States children and adolescents. Elevated BMI among US youths aged 6 to 19 years is associated with $1.4 billion in additional health care costs for outpatient visits and other care vs youths of the same age with normal BMIs.The guidelines specify three cutpoints designating overweight and obesity for children and adolescents: ⺠Overweight: BMI between 85th and 95th percentile for age/gender ⺠Obese: BMI ⥠95th percentile for age/gender ⺠Extremely obese: BMI ⥠120% of 95th percentileAn Endocrine Society task force commissioned 2 systematic reviews and used evidence from other published systematic reviews and individual studies. Scroll through the slides above for their main conclusions. SourcePediatric Obesity-Assessment, Treatment, and Prevention: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice GuidelineÂ