Monday, December 12th, 2011
Few parents of overweight children–fewer than one in four–say that their pediatricians have raised concerns over their kids’ weight, according to a new study published in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
But researchers are unsure as to whether doctors are truly not raising the issues, or whether the parents are unable or unwilling to process what they’re being told. MSNBC.com reports:
“It’s tricky to say, and it’s tricky to hear,” says lead researcher Dr. Eliana Perrin of the University of North Carolina. She analyzed government health surveys that included nearly 5,000 parents of overweight children from 1999 to 2008.
Parents tend not to realize when a weight problem is creeping up on their children. When almost a third of U.S. children are at least overweight, and about 17 percent are obese, it’s harder to notice that there’s anything unusual about their own families. Plus, children change as they grow older.
The new study suggests when parents do recall a doctor noting the problem, it’s been going on for a while.
About 30 percent of the parents of overweight 12- to 15-year-olds said a doctor had alerted them, compared with just 12 percent of the parents of overweight preschoolers. Even among the parents of very obese children, only 58 percent recalled a doctor discussing it, says the report published Monday by the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
“Many pediatricians don’t worry until children are very overweight, or until they’re much older,” says Perrin, whose team has created stoplight-colored growth charts to help doctors explain when a problem’s brewing. “If we can notice a concerning trend early, we’re more likely to be able to do something about it.”
Image: Overweight boy, via Shutterstock.
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
A new study published in the journal Pediatrics has found that 28 percent of American parents who vaccinate their children according to the recommended schedule think it would be safer to delay the immunizations until their children are older.
The study also found that a growing number of parents are delaying the vaccines, following an alternative schedule, or declining certain vaccines, most often the seasonal flu vaccine, for their children. More than 1 in 10 parents currently use an alternative vaccination schedule, the study reports, and “a large proportion of parents currently following the recommended schedule seem to be ‘at risk’ for switching to an alternative schedule.”
Pediatricians are aware of the parents’ concerns over vaccines, but a growing number will not treat children whose parents refuse or delay vaccines, citing both the serious dangers of the diseases the children are being vaccinated against and a lack of evidence of extreme side effects from the vaccines themselves. CNN.com reports:
“There is a small group of pediatricians, and I think it’s growing slowly, that tell patients, ‘If you come into our practice, we are immunizing your children according to the CDC’s and the American Academy of Pediatrics standard schedule,’” said Dr. William Schaffner, who chairs the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University. “[They say] ‘Anything less than that is not appropriate for your child. If you’re uncomfortable with that, God bless you, here are the names of some other pediatricians in town who will likely take care of your children.’”
(image via: http://www.simplyparenting.com/articles/9)
Monday, June 13th, 2011
Florida’s governor, Rick Scott, signed a law this month making the state the first to prohibit doctors–including pediatricians–from asking patients or patients’ parents whether they own a gun. Doctors who do ask such questions are subject to discipline by the state’s medical board. Several other states are considering similar proposals, according to an article published in The Boston Globe.
Pediatricians often counsel patients on safety issues, chiefly around swimming pools, household chemicals, bicycle safety…and guns. The Globe cited statistics that support this practice:
The idea that firearms are out of bounds for doctors, who are committed to preventing illness and injury, is preposterous, opponents said. Between 2003 and 2007, the most recent years for which data are available, 152,519 people were killed by firearms, including more than 15,000 children and teenagers, according to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database that collects information from death certificates.
Gun rights groups, including the National Rifle Association, supported the bill on the grounds that it protects a family’s right to privacy. “You have a right to seek medical care without being interrogated about the private property that you own,” Marion Hammer, executive director of Unified Sportsmen of Florida and a former National Rifle Association president, told the Florida Times-Union newspaper in January.
What do you think about this new Florida law, and about the rights of doctors to advise patients on gun safety?
(image via: http://ohmdkids.org)
