A study at one hospital points to a potential obstacle in the fight against childhood obesity — pediatricians failing to see it, according to a recent study released.

In two-thirds of office visits by obese children at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, pediatricians didn't note a child was overweight, said Dr. Sarah O'Brien, who led the study. She said she presented her findings to the hospital's general academic pediatrics department last year, and since then nurses were trained to calculate a patient's body mass index.

"The parents and the physician wait for the child to grow out of it," she said. "But we know that even an obese 6-year-old has a significant chance of being obese as an adult."

The study, published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, was based on a review of medical records of more than 2,000 children seen at the hospital from December 2001 to February 2002. It found that only 7 percent of pediatricians ordered laboratory tests to screen for weight-related problems, and only 15 percent noted children's activity level and hours spent watching television.

Julie Spangler, a nurse at the hospital's primary care center, said nurses there didn't routinely note a child's BMI.

"I knew just from watching kids come through that obesity was a problem," Spangler said. "Unless somebody was really off the charts, I don't know that anybody was calculating BMIs."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 16 percent of boys and 14.5 percent of girls, ages 6 to 11, were obese between 1999 to 2000. That compares with 4.3 percent of boys and 3.6 percent of girls between 1971-74. A sedentary lifestyle is a big contributor to the problem.

O'Brien said it's important for doctors and parents to discuss their children's weight, and that neither side should be hesitant to do so.

Dr. Don Shifrin, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics obesity task force, called the study's findings disheartening. He said obesity tends to sneak up on parents, and that it's sometimes difficult for pediatricians to broach the topic with parents.

More information

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Reference Source 102
August 2, 2004

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