Child and adolescent obesity: the nurse practitioner's use of the SHAPEDOWN method

The prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents has increased approximately 50% in the last 20 years and now affects more than one in four young people. Although family-based approaches to the problem recently have shown weight losses maintained at 5-year and 10-year follow-up, this care is unavailable in many communities because of an insufficient availability of trained providers. Nurse practitioners are uniquely appropriate for providing child and adolescent obesity services yet appear to be underrepresented among pediatric obesity care providers. This article describes a method of preventive and therapeutic care that nurse practitioners can use in clinical practice.