Expert Recommendations for the Treatment of Childhood and Adolescent Obesity: Advantages of the Seven Step Model and Immersion Treatments

Abstract

This paper provides a review of three sets of recent expert recommendations on the treatment of childhood and adolescent obesity: 2007 Healthcare Organizations’ Four Stage Model; 2009 Seven Step Model; and 2010 US Preventive Task Force Recommendations. A consensus emerged from this analysis. All three groups viewed the evidence as supporting intensive (>25 contact hours) dietary, physical activity and cognitive-behavioral counseling and two of the three groups discouraged reliance on educational interventions alone. A case is made for the advantages of the Seven Steps model and immersion treatments.

KEYWORDS:

• treatment
• childhood
• obesity

Author disclosure: The author is employed, in part, by Wellspring, a company that provides immersion treatments for overweight young people and adults.

The author acknowledges, with gratitude, the contributions to gathering, scoring, analyzing, and presenting the data described in this paper made by Kristina Pecora, Michelle Kwandham, Kathryn Rooney, and Kristen Gierut.