Residential Treatment Programs for Pediatric Obesity

Abstract

Levels of overweight and obesity in children continue to increase despite recognition within the public health agenda, growing levels of media attention, and public debate. Diet, physical activity, and behavior modification are components of most interventions typically used to treat obesity in the pediatric population (Barlow & Dietz, 1998; Ebbling, Pawlak, & Ludwig, 2002). In addition to the development of specific treatment components, there is a need to determine the range of treatment options that can be accessed by practitioners and clinicians. Possible interventions for the treatment of pediatric obesity range from general public health information, which is aimed at preventing further development of overweight and obesity, to long-term inpatient (specialist center) treatment programs for long-term morbidly obese children with comorbidities. The following sections will specifically highlight the range of inpatient treatment program options (residential hospital, research institution environments, and weight-loss camps—commercial or nonprofit) that would be most suitable for morbidly overweight and obese children. According to the criteria used by Reilly et al. (2002), studies of specialist inpatient or residential summer camps are of poor methodological quality. Therefore, a range of studies (with methodological limitations) reported in peer-reviewed journals, obtained from catalogs, databases, and manual searches of reference lists of articles reviewed are used here to discuss the intervention programs that have been undertaken previously. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)