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Updated: Oct 22, 2025

Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
Published on: February 2, 2017
Simple Energy Balance or Microbiome for Childhood Obesity Prevention?
Tom Baranowski1, Kathleen J Motil1
1USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, 1100 Bates St, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
Abstract:
Obesity prevention interventions generally have either not worked or had effects inadequate to mitigate the problem. They have been predicated on the simple energy balance model, which has been severely questioned by biological scientists. Numerous other etiological mechanisms have been proposed, including the intestinal microbiome, which has been related to childhood obesity in numerous ways. Public health research is needed in regard to diet and the microbiome, which hopefully will lead to effective child obesity prevention.
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