Pediatric Obesity

Obesity is a significant health problem for Pennsylvania and the nation. “Pennsylvania has the 24th highest adult obesity rate in the nation, and the 14th highest obesity rate for youth ages 10 to 17. Pennsylvania's adult obesity rate is currently 31.6%, up from 20.3% in 2000 and from 13.7% in 1990.”[i]

The 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) data show that 13.7% of Pennsylvania’s high school students have obesity. The 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health shows that 31.7% of Pennsylvania’s children ages 10-17 years have overweight or obesity. A study from 2014 of children in the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program shows that 13.1% of WIC preschoolers 2-4 years have obesity. [i]

[i] https://stateofobesity.org/states/pa/

What can we do?​

• Support and encourage breast feeding, responsive feeding, and other early feeding practices linked to healthy weight later in childhood. Build parenting skills and increase access to healthy foods for infants with referrals to local, state and federal resources. 
• Make healthy schools the norm, with daily physical education, healthy meals, no junk food, and health education that includes health literacy and healthy skills like cooking and meal planning. 
• Help ensure communities have plenty of safe spaces for physical activities and access to healthy food.
• Fix our food supply so that healthy food is incentivized and plentiful.
• Improve payment for obesity treatment and preventive care.
• Hold each other and policy makers accountable for doing what it takes to have a healthy population.

Obesity Toolkit 

Below are tools we have found to be useful in the evaluation, treatment and prevention of pediatric overweight and obesity. 

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