Prevention & Treatment of Overweight in Children/Adolescents

Read the article â??Prevention and Treatment of Overweight in Children and Adolescentsâ? from the American Family Physician and discuss the following questions:

Describe and analyze the new definition of child overweight as an effective intervention for childhood obesity. In your opinion is it useful? Why or why not?
Name at least two facts based on research that support it.

What are the consequences/ health effects of childhood overweight?

Describe the prevention and intervention methods presented in this article.

Provide specific applications to two (2) of the general approaches to therapy presented in the article.
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Prevention and Treatment of Overweight in Children and Adolescents - June 1, 2004 - American Family Physician.html

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Here you go- let me know if you have any questions. Good luck!

The new definition of the term “overweight” in children is defined in two ways. Those children who have body mass indexes more than the 95 percentile for their age and sex, and those children who are at risk for being overweight, which are children with body mass index from the 85th to 95th percentiles for their age and sex. Calculating BMI’s for children and taking into consideration medical complications as well as family history would help sound the alarm and present a call to action for many children and their families. In this way the information is useful. However, BMI for children is based on percentiles of the other American children. This means that as the overall children population gets heavier, the percentiles become misleading. According to the article, the “prevalence of overweight and at-risk status among children and adolescents has rapidly increased over the past 40 years.” In 2002 16 percent of children ages six to 11 were categorized as overweight, compared to 4 percent in 1962 (Prevalence of Overweight Among Children and Teenagers, by Age Group and Selected Period, 1963-2002). Looking merely at the percentiles is misleading as the overall weight compared to height continues to increase. One must also look at height, weight, …