Lack of Evidence for Screening for Childhood Obesity

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is urging pediatricians not to focus only on height and weight in determining whether a child is overweight.

In a new recommendation, the Task Force found insufficient evidence that screening children for overweight provides any benefit. Leading groups of family doctors and pediatricians endorse routine screening using the height-weight ratio of the Body Mass Index. But there's no evidence that all children with high BMIs need to lose weight to be healthy-and there's no evidence that pediatricians' weight counseling results in weight loss and better health. BMI can be fairly effective at identifying children who have weight problems, said Task Force member Virginia Moyer, M.D. But it can't determine if body mass is mostly fat or lean tissue, and not all children with high BMIs need to lose weight, said Moyer, a pediatrics professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. Dr. Moyer recommends that doctors investigate rapid increases in weight that are not accompanied by increases in height.

Select to read the recommendation.

The recommendation is published in the July issue of Pediatrics.