General Pediatrics– in the department of pediatrics

Child and Adolescent Obesity

The Division of General Pediatrics is respected nationally and internationally for its major contributions in child and adolescent obesity research.  The Division provides leadership for the Center for Healthy Weight at Stanford University and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. Established by Dr. Thomas Robinson, the Center for Healthy Weight was created to bring together all the resources and programs devoted to childhood obesity at Stanford, bringing together the unique strengths of the University, Medical School and Hospitals on a single campus.

The programs and goals span five core areas:

  1. Research (basic and translational, clinical research and clinical trials, prevention science, and public policy research),
  2. Patient Care (a multi-specialty referral Pediatric Weight Clinic, the Packard Pediatric Weight Control Program — an intensive family-based, group behavioral treatment program for 8-15 year old obese patients, and an adolescent bariatric surgery program),
  3. Community Programs (including partnerships with community organizations and coalitions),
  4. Training and Professional Education (undergraduate teaching, medical students, residents, postdoctoral fellows, and continuing medical and other professional education), and
  5. Advocating for Public Policy Change (local, state, regional, national and international).

The Center’s primary goal is to stimulate new interactions and collaborations across disciplines and across the campus, to create new directions of inquiry and synergies for innovations across all five areas. The Center for Healthy Weight sponsors a campus-wide monthly research seminar to foster opportunities for cross-pollination and incubating novel ideas. It has involved faculty and staff from throughout the Children’s Hospital, the School of Medicine, Humanities & Sciences, the School of Engineering, the Graduate School of Business, the School of Education, and the University-wide Environmental and International Initiatives.

Child and adolescent obesity research by faculty in the Division of General Pediatrics focuses on:

  • the epidemiology of childhood obesity, identifying risk factors, correlates, and consequences of childhood obesity, as well as the biological, psychological, social and environmental factors that moderate or mediate the impact of risk factors or interventions.
  • Prevention of childhood obesity, designing and evaluating the efficacy and effectiveness of theory-based family-, school- and community-based interventions to prevent excessive weight gain in children and adolescents.
  • Treatment of childhood obesity, designing and evaluating the efficacy and effectiveness of clinical- and community-based interventions for weight control in overweight and obese children and adolescents.

    • Many faculty members in the Division of General Pediatrics are studying child and adolescent obesity:

    Stanford Medicine Resources:

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