A respected medical panel is urging pediatricians not to focus only on height and weight in determining whether a child is too fat. Leading groups of family doctors and pediatricians endorse routine screening using the height-weight ratio of the body-mass index. But there’s no evidence that all children with high BMIs need to lose weight to be healthy — and there’s no evidence that pediatricians’ weight counseling results in weight loss and better health, according to a report from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a non-governmental panel of researchers.The report comes amid growing concern over how to stem the nation’s rising obesity. Some 15 percent of U.S. schoolchildren are estimated to be obese, and 30 percent are believed to be overweight.
