Table 2.

Strategies Used By Primary Care Providers To Diagnose Childhood Overweight

Strategies	Sample Comments
1. Visual assessment
a. Observe patient	“The obvious ones just sort of hit you in the face, and it doesn’t take a lot of time, just a visual observation.”
b. Observe family	“...I tend to look at the whole family, the parents and then sometimes...other kids in the family are there, ...and try and see if the kid is the one person in the room who seems to be overweight or if others like the parent or other siblings are also overweight.”
2. Charting
a. Assess weight	“I was guilty of just getting the height and weight separately and mainly going by the weight chart only.”
b. Assess height/weight	“I look at the weight for age and the weight for height...and don’t usually bother with the BMI.”
c. Assess trends	“More and more we’re getting them when they cross lines, so if they go from the 25th percentile when they were 3 and they’re 6 and now they’re 75th percentile, we’re beginning to bring that to the parents.”
3. Body Mass Index (BMI)
a. Calculate if concerned	“We didn’t calculate BMI...unless there was something that would make us say, ‘Okay, let’s calculate this kid’s BMI so we can see where they’re at.’”
b. Calculate routinely	“I’m probably doing more BMIs...I’ve been trying to get more of those at risk for overweight.#x201D;