Pediatric Obesity Resources

The Pediatric Obesity Algorithm was developed by practicing pediatricians and clinicians who treat obesity in infants, children, and adolescents. It combines scientific evidence, medical literature, and clinical experience into one document to educate clinicians and help them implement evidence-based practices. Clinicians can use the Pediatric Obesity Algorithm as a resource when making treatment recommendations or when referring their patients to childhood obesity specialists.

The Obesity Algorithm® is a clinical tool to help health care providers both understand the complexity of the disease of obesity and implement effective, evidence-based obesity treatment strategies with their patients.

Body mass index (BMI) is not used to measure obesity in children until age 2. Prior to age 2, growth charts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) provide information on how to assess obesity. View the WHO growth charts View the CDC growth charts

The Institute for Healthy Childhood Weight serves as a translational engine for pediatric obesity prevention, assessment, management, and treatment, and moves policy and research from theory into practice in American healthcare, communities, and homes.

CORD (Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration) project is a CDC-funded project to look at different community-based levels of intervention in Texas, Massachusetts, and California. Provides references and outcomes discussions from the studies.

USDA resource for wellness advocacy in schools and resources for families.

The Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition has developed several tools intended to provide primary care physicians with practical guidance on the approach to the child with obesity.

Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity has great pediatric information, sensitive pictures, guidelines for media, etc. In addition, there are full text articles available for any manuscripts that the Center's researchers produce, which is very helpful for those without access to an academic library.

The Parenting at Mealtime and Playtime (PMP) Learning Collaborative offers resources to pediatric practices to help counsel families of infants and young children (ages birth to 5 years) about good nutrition and positive parent-child interactions during mealtime and playtime. This quality improvement program provides tools for physicians to enhance prevention counseling strategies, become adept at assessing “risk,” and intervene at the earliest possible stage before a child develops overweight or obesity.

Site provided as a resource for community health centers in western regions with a list of provider and family resources for obesity treatment and prevention.

The Healthy Active Living for Families (HALF): Right from the Start program is a project developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics to address early childhood obesity prevention that integrates the parent perspective and evidence-informed pediatric health guidance.

Resource for providers with templates for talking with patients about obesity and prevention, as well as handouts, posters, and other resources.

The Obesity Society’s fact sheet on obesity in pediatrics.

ChopChop is a quarterly cooking magazine and website for kids and their families. The print edition is given out by doctors to children and their parents as part of pediatric visits to promote healthy eating and cooking together. Available in English and Spanish.

In response to the growing rates of childhood obesity, pediatrician Nimali Fernando MD, MPH, started doctoryum.org in 2011 to teach her patients and her families about the benefits of healthy eating. What started out as a recipe and parenting site grew to a bigger project of teaching a healthy lifestyle to the greater community. In 2012, The Dr. Yum Project, a 501 (c)3 organization, was born.

Provided by the Children’s Hospital Association as a template for developing an obesity program.

The provider page of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is a great resource for a wide range of obesity interventions with provider and patient resources.

Keep up to date with nutrition, physical activity, and obesity data. CDC's Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity (DNPAO) has made important updates to the Data, Trends and Maps database.

The Alliance for a Healthier Generation and Voices for Healthy Kids are working to elevate the importance of strong wellness policies in schools. The #WellnessWins campaign celebrates district wellness success and inspires everyone to create healthier school environments grounded in strong wellness policies. School leaders, community members, and parents can visit WellnessWins.org to download resources, read success stories, and learn how to support and advance school wellness policies.

Enrollment is now open for POWER, the Pediatric Obesity Weight Evaluation Registry – Cycle 4 (July 1, 2020 – June 30, 2022). POWER is a consortium of hospital-based multi-component pediatric weight management (PWM) programs across the country that collect demographic and clinical data to submit to a centralized data repository. Multi-component PWM programs include medical, nutrition, physical activity and behavioral strategies for the treatment of youth with obesity. POWER enables collaborations to pursue research initiatives that access the aggregate POWER data set. Participating sites also have opportunities to share best practices among members through monthly interactive webinars and the POWER News Update. Goals for POWER are: 1) Establish a national registry of treatment-seeking children and adolescents with obesity - this registry serves as a resource to promote high quality research as it relates to the evaluation and management of youth with obesity. As of 12/31/2019, there are 13,208 patients enrolled in POWER. 2) Improve patient care – advance evidence-based guidelines for the management of pediatric obesity; help to standardize and improve quality of care for youth with obesity and their families in the United States. 3) Promote collaborative research – conduct quality improvement projects and multi-center clinical trials to test innovative and promising treatment options for youth with obesity. Currently POWER is led by Principal Investigator, Shelley Kirk, PhD, RD, LD, at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. POWER has established a governance structure that determines goals, policies and procedures for POWER, including research initiatives that involve access and use of the aggregate POWER data set. To enroll in POWER, each site submits a fully-executed POWER Data Use Agreement, obtains IRB approval at their site to recruit patients for participation in POWER, and submits the $5,000 enrollment fee. These enrollment fees support POWER’s Data Coordinating Center, which is led by Eileen King, PhD and located at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. These fees also cover POWER’s administrative support services. If interested, we now offer an online Intent to Enroll form you can access on our POWER website https://www.powerregistry.org/enroll. Our new POWER website also includes a number of updates about POWER and more information about the enrollment process. Please send any questions about enrollment to power@cchmc.org