Obesity Prevention and Treatment in School-aged Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults—Where Do We Go from Here?

Abstract

The rise in the rate of obesity in school-aged children, adolescents, and young adults in the last 30 years is a clear healthcare crisis that needs to be addressed. Despite recent national reports in the United States highlighting positive downward trends in the rate of obesity in younger children, we are still faced with approximately 12.7 million children struggling with obesity. Given the immediate and long-term health consequences of obesity, much time and effort has been expended to address this epidemic. Yet, despite these efforts, we still only see limited, short-term success from most interventions. Without changes to how we address childhood obesity, we will continue to see inadequate improvements in the health of our children. Clinicians and researchers need to be lobbying for evidence-based policy changes, such as those identified by systems science, in order to improve the nation’s health.

Implementing School-Based Policies to Prevent Obesity: Cluster Randomized Trial

“…41 The subgroup of adolescents in the healthy weight range were significantly more likely than other students to experience weight stability, suggesting that "prevention may be better than cure." 17,42 Prevention trials-focused on preventing healthy-weight children from becoming overweight-have documented moderate-to-strong support for school-based interventions that focus on the kinds of nutrition and physical activity initiatives implemented. Reviews indicate that childhood obesity prevention interventions can be effective in reducing adiposity, especially in the most methodologically rigorous studies.…”

“…In addition, the study seeks to determine whether these policy interventions are more or less effective for girls or boys and for differences on baseline BMI (i.e., prevention/treatment) based on prior research that has demonstrated these subgroup effects. 16,17…”

Healthy Me: A retrospective review of a pediatric resident run clinic for children and with overweight or obesity

“…There is plenty of research in the area of childhood obesity and perhaps this very fact testifies that no solution is apparent. Many interventions, be it prevention or treatment of childhood obesity, have shown positive advances but often the followup study indicates that these advances were not sustained over time [7,8,9]. Several of the hundreds of studies surrounding the prevention of or intervention for childhood obesity use motivational interviewing and when placed in a systematic review process the outcome is often positive [12].…”

The reality of elementary schools: a call for urgent community nutrition programs

“…The reality of elementary schools: a call for urgent community nutrition programs Objective: In the last decades, the prevalence of overweight and obesity in childhood has been increasing worldwide at an alarming rate [1]. The negative impact of this pandemic is reflected on children's health and is perpetuated in their adulthood [2].…”

“…The negative impact of this pandemic is reflected on children's health and is perpetuated in their adulthood [2]. It is recognized that preventive strategies are priority in fighting childhood obesity, and that schools are a preferential environment for this approach [1][2][3]. Our aim was to evaluate a cohort of elementary school students to understand the need for preventive community nutrition programs.…”