Childhood Obesity

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An epidemic of childhood obesity and overweight, to which social, economic, and human behaviors have contributed, threatens long-term medical, psychosocial, and financial consequences beyond US society’s current capacity to respond. How the epidemic is controlled will be about the art and practice of social and behavioral change as well as the art and science of medicine. Missing from much of the public discussion is what the epidemic means to medical practice and the role of physicians as agents of prevention and change.

Practicing physicians are familiar with the increasing number of obese and overweight adults living with multiple and chronic illnesses, requiring complex and expensive care, and dying prematurely. The epidemic’s clinical effects are now evident in younger patients with diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia.

In addressing this disturbing trend and preventing its spread, physicians are challenged to look to the broader environment.

The Childhood Obesity Epidemic: Prevalence and Impact

The Food Trust

Arkansas Center for Health Improvement

Alliance for a Healthier Generation

Author Affiliation: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, New Jersey.

Full article

What It Means for Physicians

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA

JAMA. 2007;298(8):920-922.
Vol. 298 No. 8, August 22/29, 2007

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