Responding to the Childhood Obesity Epidemic: From the Provider Visit to Health Care Policy—Steps the Health Care Sector Can Take

Pediatricians, along with most of the American public, now well know that childhood obesity is a leading threat to the long-term health of the population, rivaling smoking in its potential impact. What pediatricians and other health professionals who deal with children have not known is what they can do to affect this epidemic and how they can be most effective in doing it.

From the perspective of the clinician in practice, the problem of obesity seems overwhelming. The number of children affected is vast, with healthy lifestyles a concern for all children and overweight or obesity affecting as many as one quarter of children ages 2–19 years. In part because of the limited emphasis on effective counseling methods in traditional medical education, addressing behaviors such as increasing use of car seats or reducing tobacco use is difficult for many clinicians. This has been the case even when the evidence is…