PCR050: Pediatric Obesity Management Practices: A Survey of Primary Care Providers

Tamim Rajjo, MD, MPH, MD. MPH; Rodney Erickson, MD; Bridget Biggs, PhD, LP, ABPP

Abstract

Background: Pediatric obesity remains a common and challenging problem to primary care clinicians. The USPSTF recommends that clinicians screen for obesity in children and adolescents 6 years and older and offer or refer them to comprehensive, intensive behavioral interventions to promote improvements in weight status. There has been a growing interest in providing services to meet these needs, but implementation has been slow.
Objective: This survey studies the services and barriers primary care providers have related to the care of children and adolescents with obesity. Results: We sent a survey to 192 family physicians and pediatricians in the Mayo Clinic Midwest practice and 62 (32.3%) responded. The vast majority of responders pay special attention to weight status during their encounters by sharing BMI information with parents (85%), providing brief dietary counseling (90%) and briefly discussing physical activity guidelines (87.1%). Less than half would provide expanded counseling or detailed concepts like the 5-2-1-0. Most responders had access to advanced dietary services (77%), but not exercise (6.5%) or behavioral modification (19.4%) programs. Less than 20% had access to community-based dietary, exercise or comprehensive lifestyle programs. Lack of patient/parent motivation (80.6%) and lack of referral options (67.7%) were top barriers to management. An Easy-to-find Electronic Medical Record order was identified as most helpful in educating and referring patients to obesity management services (80.6%).
Conclusions: Although these findings do align with most of the current literature, they highlight the need for more community-based resources to support primary care providers efforts in management of childhood and adolescent obesity. They also emphasize the role of patient/parent motivation as a major barrier to success and would be helpful when designing a comprehensive primary care based weight loss program for this population.
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Jack Westfall
jwestfall@aafp.org 11/20/2021

such an important topic. hope this work continues. nice work. thanks

Diane Harper
harperdi@med.umich.edu 11/21/2021

This is a really tough topic. It is important for primary care to engage with this adolescent group for lifetime lifestyles changes.

Gillian Bartlett
gillian.bartlett@health.missouri.edu 11/23/2021

Very interesting findings - there are a lot of people looking at parents, built environment, peers etc when considering obesity in this age group. You may want to connect with Tracie Barnett in Family Medicine at McGill University as they are engaging with parents as well as teens around obesity risk.

Andy Pasternak
avpiv711@sbcglobal.net 11/28/2021

This is such an important but difficult topic. Please keep up the great work

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