About 14.7 million children and adolescents are dealing with obesity.
The percentage of children affected has more than tripled since the 1970s.
The American Academy of Pediatrics issued its first comprehensive guidelines on evaluating and treating both children and adolescents with obesity.
Obesity is defined as having a body mass index at or above the 95th percentile of the CDC growth charts. The new guidelines include behavioral intervention, drug treatments and, in some cases, surgery as treatments.
Dr. Danelle Fisher, chair of pediatrics at Providence Saint John’s Health Center, sat down with “Inside the Issues” host Alex Cohen to discuss the new guidelines.
Obesity puts children at risk for both short- and long-term health conditions such as high cholesterol, heart disease and diabetes. Childhood obesity can also lead to mental health issues, according to the report.
“[Obesity] is really what we like to call multifactorial. You have to take into account a little bit of everything when you’re looking at each of these children,” Fisher said.
Factors such as a child’s genetics, family history, lifestyle and socioeconomic factors contribute to a child’s weight.
The new guidelines focus on addressing these lifestyle factors as the cause of childhood obesity. The recommendations are broken into two groups: children ages 2-10 and 10 and above.
Fisher says for children ages 2-10, recommendations are aimed toward lifestyle changes. For the 10-18 age group, the same lifestyle changes are recommended, but medication recommendations are also included, as well as surgery in some cases.
Fisher notes while the new recommendations might be a point of concern for people worried about the adverse effects of treatments such as their kids taking pills or undergoing surgery, she emphasizes that treatment is going to be handled on a case-by-case basis.
“I feel like because it’s such a comprehensive guideline, we really have to break it down into what’s going to work for most people, most kids, what’s going to work for most pediatricians and health care providers,” Fisher said. “Certainly, we’re not able to [sic] implement everything that’s recommended, so we kind of have to chunk it out a bit.”
The new guidelines also bring up the problems with equity. Not every child who is dealing with obesity is going to have the same health care access to the recommended resources.
“We agree that all kids should have this, not all kids are going to get this,” Fisher said.
Fisher added that solving the problem isn’t fixed by a pill or a surgery. It requires a committed change in lifestyle from the child, their parent and health care provider.
“You want to remember that we want these kids to feel supported, and we want to partner with them to make their lives better,” Fisher said.
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