Addressing an overweight child and an unaware parent in the general practice consultation

General practitioners (GPs) can play a key role in tackling the current obesity epidemic, especially helping parents who may not realise that their child is overweight. In a ten-minute consultation, a GP should: explore a parent's ideas, concerns and expectations about food and exercise and build a picture of the home environmentexclude medical causes of overweight and plot height and weight on a growth chartoffer practical strategies and achievable goals, agree follow up and involve the multidisciplinary team for support.

Childhood obesity is a global epidemic that has significant impact on the physical and psychological health and development of children, and often persists into adulthood where the health sequelae are well known. Parents are key players in putting healthy living advice into practice but our recent systematic review showed that parents are poor at recognising overweight in their own children. We believe GPs are key to providing health promotion for this group. However, to approach this sensitive subject requires one to have confidence and skills at one's fingertips and we hope this guide can provide these.