Prescribing Exercise for Obese Youth in the Primary Care Setting

摘要

The current epidemic of childhood obesity bears grave implications for the present and future health of today's youth. Indeed, one hardly risks hyperbole in predicting that this dramatic rise in body fat early in life looms like a tsunami on a future of cardiovascular, orthopedic, and metabolic complications when these overweight youth reach adulthood over the, next several decades. During the pediatric years obese children and adolescents already demonstrate increased risk factors for future disease, with adverse serum lipid profiles, systemic hypertension, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, and vascular endothelial dysfunction. Moreover, it can be expected that the frequency of adverse health outcomes of significant obesity during the growing years-psychosocial disturbances, asthma, orthopedic abnormalities, sleep apnea-will increase as well.