• Government
• Profession
• Business
• Opinion
• Health

• Health reform
• H1N1
• P4P
• EMRs
• Medicare
• Liability
• AMA House
• » More

• Book Excerpt
• Business Pitch
• Meetings
• » More

• Contract Language
• Ethics Forum
• In the Courts
• Practice Management
• Technically Speaking
• » More

• Issue dates
• Regions
• Health plans
• Sections
• News briefs
• Columns
• Editorials
• Letters
• Writers
• Other years

• Search tips
• E-mail alert
• Radio
• RSS
• Mobile
• Subscribe
• Institutions
• Staff directory
• Advertising
• Permissions
• Reprints
• News media
• Site guide
• Useful links
• About
• Premium
• Contact

Obesity weighs hard on urban kids

Inner-city physicians find even greater challenges in attempting to address the obesity epidemic among their young patients.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, amednews staff. May 10, 2004.

• PRINT|
• E-MAIL|
• RESPOND|
• REPRINTS|
• SHARE

The 4-year-old who sat in the office of pediatrician Arnulfo Delgado, MD, was clearly too heavy. But his parents weren't concerned.

Like many who show up at Dr. Delgado's San Rafael Medical Center in Chicago's mostly Latino Little Village neighborhood, these parents felt their child's heft was nothing more than a case of healthy baby fat. Dr. Delgado had to perform a cholesterol test to convince them otherwise.

"More than 50% of the kids in my practice are obese, and the parents don't perceive it as a problem," said Dr. Delgado.

Dr. Delgado is one of many physicians working in America's inner cities who are observing a pediatric obesity and overweight rate far above the national average of 26% for children 2 to 12 years old, according to data from the National Health and Examination Survey.

"It's a bigger problem than heroin, cocaine, alcohol and HIV put together," said Zach Rosen, MD, medical director of the Montefiore Family Health Center in the Bronx.

Those interested in reducing health disparities are taking note, too.

In April, the Sinai Health System Urban Health Institute in Chicago hosted a day-long Summit on Childhood Obesity, bringing together neighborhood activists, educators, dieticians, public health officials and physicians, such as Dr. Delgado, to develop possible communitywide solutions.

"Awareness isn't working. Everybody knows it's a good idea to be active and that junk food isn't healthy," said Katherine Kaufer Christoffel, MD, MPH, medical director of the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children. "We need new approaches because this is a very complicated problem that's going to require numerous interventions in every sector of society in a sustained way."