Resumen

HERRERA CUENCA, Marianella. Trends in the childhood obesity treatment: pharmacologic treatment vs lifestyle or early prevention. An Venez Nutr [online]. 2014, vol.27, n.1, pp.101-109. ISSN 0798-0752.

Obesity has been increasing worldwide at an alarming rate in the last decades and research regarding origins and early prevention has been a hot topic among scientific community. Children that are overweight or obese have an increased risk of becoming obese, getting type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases during adulthood. These are the reasons for intervention and treatment. Those children who need it, should get treatment according to updated criteria and with the fundamental parameter that population’s weight gaining must be stopped. An increased weight, once installed is challenging to eliminate. Childhood Obesity includes three phases: primary prevention: where pre-school kids are instructed and get familiarized treatment with healthy foods and physical activity, secondary prevention: children who are already overweight are intervened with strategies for changing their lifestyle under medical surveillance and tertiary: more aggressive treatments are includes such as: strict portion control, pharmacologic treatment or bariatric surgery. Also, physical activity has been consolidated as a factor that promotes health and wellness among infant and youth population, nevertheless is a complex construct difficult to assess and in consequence hard to compare with existing recommendations. A new perspective is the prescription of lifestyle which promotes a non invasive treatment for obesity.

Palabras clave : Childhood Obesity; lifestyle prescription; physical activity.

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