ABSTRACT
Most children with obesity continue to be overweight into adulthood (Whitaker, Wright, Pepe, Seidel, & Dietz, 1997). A considerable body of evidence is now available demonstrating that continued obesity leads to serious health problems (Dietz, 1998; Mossberg, 1989). Unfortunately, actions to reduce problems of overweight have met with failure. While adult obesity is known to be resistant to treatment (Wilson, 1994), intervention programs for children are producing promising results for some children, but not for all (Braet & Van Winckel, 2000; Epstein, Valoski, Wing, & McCurley, 1990, 1994; Nuutinen & Knip, 1992). Although a 10% reduction in weight is associated with reduced health risks in adults (Wilson, 1994), the maximum weight loss reached by the child obesity treatment programs is disappointingly low for severely obese children. Furthermore, not all children benet from this approach. In the study of Epstein et al. (1994), one-third of the sample failed to reduce their obese status.
