Overweight Teens Neglected as Screenings Focus on Obesity

Poor neglected fat kids, victims of a silly sick care system that is looking for probs in almost all the wrong places.

Primary care providers commonly neglect to offer appropriate weight management screening to the very adolescents who are at a high risk of becoming obese — those who are overweight — according to new research published online July 18 in Pediatrics.

Carolyn Bradner Jasik, MD, and colleagues from the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of California–San Francisco, who were investigating childhood obesity prevention efforts among primary care providers, evaluated data from the 2003, 2005, and 2007 California Health Interview Surveys on 9220 adolescents, aged 12 to 17 years, who had had a checkup in the past 12 months.

The data included responses to telephone interviews in which respondents were asked about whether they received screening for nutrition, physical activity, and emotional distress at their last checkup. Their body mass index (BMI) also was calculated according to self-reported height and weight.

A pooled sample of results for all 3 years showed that obese, but not overweight, adolescents reported higher rates of screening for physical activity (odds ratio [OR], 1.4; P < .01) and nutrition (OR, 1.6; P < .01) compared with normal-weight individuals.

And the system looks for solutions in all the wrong places.