title: Diagnosis and treatment frequency for overweight children and adolescents at well child visits.
abstract: Obesity in children is a rapidly growing problem and may be underrecognized by pediatricians. We reviewed 473 consecutive well child visits to assess frequency of correctly identifying overweight children. Of children with a body mass index greater than the 95th percentile for gender and age, only 27 (29%) were diagnosed as overweight by the physician. Our results suggest that the frequency of diagnosing children as overweight at well child visits is critically low.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of Louisville/School of Medicine, Louisville, KY 40202, USA.
authors.forename: Miriam V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Louthan
authors.forename: Margaret J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Lafferty-Oza
authors.forename: Elizabeth R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Hornung
authors.forename: Sofia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Franco
authors.forename: Judy A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Theriot
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy; D012189:Retrospective Studies