Childhood overweight: Management approaches in young children

Management of overweight in young children may be our best opportunity for confronting the nationwide epidemic of childhood obesity. Doing so will require all health care providers to improve their identification, assessment, and guidance on this issue. As a group, we must make it a priority to obtain height and weight measurements on every child and to interpret them correctly. We must be comprehensive in our medical investigation in order to uncover identifiable causes and recognize comorbidities. Most of all, we must motivate families, as a whole, to confront this issue with us by increasing physical activity, decreasing sedentary behaviors, and improving eating practices. As health professionals in a society that is not yet poised to fight this epidemic, we must lead the way.