The University Children’s Hospital’s Fitness Clinic is one of 16 hospitals chosen by the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions to take part in a collaborative focus group to combat childhood obesity through research and treatment, the University recently announced.
The study, funded by Mattel Children’s Foundation, will continue for 18 months and will include three meetings with representatives of the participating hospitals as well as daily sharing of information through e-mail and telecommunications, explained Susan Cluett, a Children’s Fitness Clinic nurse practitioner and program director.
The goal of the focus group is to bring together an interesting and diverse group of people to address the issue of childhood obesity in the United States, NACHRI Child Advocacy Director Karen Seaver-Hill said, describing obesity as being “among the most vexing health problems facing children today in the world of preventative health.”
Seaver-Hill added that this research is important because children today face adult diseases as a result of obesity.
“It is only together [that] we can find out what is best for these kids,” she said.
The focus group’s reason for selecting the 16 participants, Seaver-Hill said, was “to strike a balance of opinion, a balance of application, a balance of hospital type and a regional balance ... [to] have as many voices at the table as possible” in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of what leads to childhood obesity.
Seaver-Hill explained that the focus group itself creates the agenda for research, and the study ranges from questions concerning sustainability of treatment to the role of insurance companies.
This study offers a chance to learn how to provide standardized care for the treatment of childhood obesity, Cluett said, explaining that “it is a unified effort because it is a big issue.”
One of the issues the group is considering, Cluett said, is reimbursement.
“A lot of insurance companies don’t recognize obesity as a disease, so the reimbursement rate for managing obese kids is not what it should be,” she said, adding that this could be one factor explaining why some families do not seek medical attention for obesity.
Another important aspect of the focus group’s study, Cluett said, is the development “of a toolbox for primary care physicians for standards of care for the treatment of childhood obesity.”
Cluett said she hopes to see the development of a set of guidelines for the treatment of obesity by primary care physicians that the American Academy of Pediatrics would accept.
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