From New York Times, I'm Megabobaro. This is Adelaide.

Today, the story behind sweeping and to many revolutionary new guidelines for how to

treat millions of children with obesity. I spoke to my colleague, Gina Kalada, about what

led to the change. It's Thursday, January 26th.

Gina, tell us about these new recommendations for children in the U.S. with obesity.

These are recommendations by an influential group, the American Academy of Pediatrics.

They are a departure from what people have been doing in the past. They are telling pediatricians

in very definitive language to do something very bold. When they have a child who has

obesity, they say you have to be aggressive. You have to take action now. It is a response

to a new understanding of what obesity is and what to do about it.

Just remind us of how widespread a problem this is and how many people are likely to be

impacted by these bold new guidelines. It's a huge number. 14.4 million children in

adolescents, one in five, a lot of children. 20% of American children. That's right.

What's the nature of the recommendations from this group? They're very sweeping. They

involve examining a child as young as two and saying, does this child have obesity? If

so, they advise intensive lifestyle counseling and treatment. And for children who are 12

years old, we're older. And they have obesity. They say it is appropriate and recommended to

prescribe a drug that will help them lose weight. And for children 13 and older with severe

obesity, they might want to consider bariatric surgery, weight loss surgery.

Wow. Those are pretty aggressive forms of intervention for young people.

Absolutely. And I know their concern is that you can't ignore obesity. In general, it

doesn't go away. Kids do not outgrow it. And once it gets started, it just persists through

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