Treating youth overweight in the medical home: Lessons from a pediatrician-dietitian partnership model

Obesity is a chronic debilitating condition seen commonly by primary care pediatricians. Overweight children comprise about 28% of the U.S. pediatric population. The consequences of overweight include serious life-long conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, orthopedic disease, and poor quality of life in general. Compared to colds and coughs, obesity cries out, or rather screams out, to be treated. Health care providers often ignore this problem, however, in part because treatment can be costly and time consuming for all parties. Further, treatment programs are frequently conducted in non-medical venues, thus removing health care providers from the treatment plan. To best treat youth overweight,a model of treatment that fosters continued commitment by the patient, involvement of the patient's entire family, and close follow up care by the primary care physician is needed. In other words, the treatment model must be based within the patient's own Medical Home.

We present preliminary findings from implementing a peditrician-dietician partnership model housed within the youth's Medical Home and that utilizes an evidenced-based weight-loss program for youth. The process, challenges, and lessons learned will be presented along with outcome data on the program's success.