2008

The number of children and adolescents struggling with significant weight problems and obesity is growing at an alarming rate. In the past thirty years, the number of obese children and adolescents in the United States has more than tripled (Ogden , Flegal, Carroll, & Johnson, 2002). This trend does not appear to be limited to this country, as nearly 22 million children around the world are classified as either overweight or obese (Deckelbaum & Williams, 2001). This dramatic increase has resulted in serious medical consequences with 45% of all newly diagnosed type-2 diabetes cases being children or adolescents and ever-increasing numbers of children being diagnosed with hypertension, cardiovascular problems, and sleep apnea due to overweight and obesity (Singhal, Schwenk, & Kumar, 2007). Research has also shown that these children are at a high risk for becoming obese adults (Deckelbaum & Williams, 2001, Laessle, Uhl, & Lindel, 2001; see also Baughcum, Chamberlin, Deeks, Powers, & Whitaker, 2000) and overweight girls are more likely to quit school, live in poverty and suffer unemployment as adults (Mellin , Neumark-Sztainer, Story, Ireland, & Resnnick, 2002). Despite ongoing efforts among health professionals to address this epidemic, the number of children who are obese continues to rise with no indication of improvement (Wadden, Brownell, & Foster, 2002).