PERSPECTIVE

Obesity

Tackling the obesity epidemic: new approaches

J J Reilly

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr J J Reilly
University Division of Developmental Medicine, 1st Floor Tower QMH, Yorkhill Hospitals, Glasgow G3 8SJ, UK; jjr2y@clinmed.gla.ac.uk

---

Perspective on the paper by Rudolf et al (see page 736)

---

Keywords: adolescence; overweight; prevention

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The epidemic of obesity in UK children and adolescents began in the mid to late 1980s.¹ As in other parts of the world, overweight and obesity have become very common, and prevalence continues to increase. The most recent nationally available data from within the UK come from the Health Survey for England 2004:² in 2–10 year olds 16% of boys and 12% of girls were obese (BMI 95th centile), and in 11–15 year olds a staggering 24% of English boys and 26% of English girls were obese in 2004.

Though high, these estimates of obesity prevalence are probably conservative: a high BMI for age is a good simple means of diagnosing obesity in that it is characterised by high specificity (low false positive rate), but it is also characterised by modest sensitivity, a moderate false negative rate.^3,4 This means that there are many children with an excessively high body . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Articles

A brief digest of the September issue
Arch. Dis. Child. 2006 91: e5. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

WATCH IT: a community based programme for obese children and adolescents

M Rudolf, D Christie, S McElhone, P Sahota, R Dixey, J Walker, and C Wellings
Arch. Dis. Child. 2006 91: 736-739. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Basterfield, L, Adamson, A J, Parkinson, K N, Maute, U, Li, P X, Reilly, J J, the Gateshead Millennium Study Core Team, (2008). Surveillance of physical activity in the UK is flawed: validation of the Health Survey for England Physical Activity Questionnaire. Arch. Dis. Child. 93: 1054-1058 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Reilly, J J, Penpraze, V, Hislop, J, Davies, G, Grant, S, Paton, J Y (2008). Objective measurement of physical activity and sedentary behaviour: review with new data. Arch. Dis. Child. 93: 614-619 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Kipping, R R, Payne, C, Lawlor, D A (2008). Randomised controlled trial adapting US school obesity prevention to England. Arch. Dis. Child. 93: 469-473 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Jafar, T H, Qadri, Z, Islam, M, Hatcher, J, Bhutta, Z A, Chaturvedi, N (2008). Rise in childhood obesity with persistently high rates of undernutrition among urban school-aged Indo-Asian children. Arch. Dis. Child. 93: 373-378 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Reilly, J. J, Paton, J. Y, McColl, J H, Williamson, A (2006). Physical activity to prevent obesity in young children: Authors' reply. BMJ 333: 1171-1172 [Full Text]