Pediatricians’ obesity guidelines misinterpreted eating disorder studies

To address rising rates of childhood obesity, the American Academy of Pediatrics last year endorsed tactics it once considered risky.

“Watchful waiting” had been standard practice, partly out of fear that a doctor’s focus on weight could inadvertently sow the seeds of stigma or eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.

The influential academy now said paediatricians should ‘pursue early treatment at the highest level of intensity appropriate and available to the child’. Some teens need to have bariatric surgery. Others should inject the obesity drug Wegovy. Some children from the age of 2 need to undergo intensive behavioral treatment.