As a primary physician, I have been struggling to manage overweight kids coming to my office for ten years. I passed out the educational handouts to patients and parents and counseled diet and exercise for each well check-ups and sick visits. I went through calorie calculation for food and designed a food diary log form for following up. But the majority of time, I failed to handle the situation. I saw that more and more kids are gaining extra weight when they reach their late tens or early teens. I saw more and more obese teens are suffering from diabetics, hypertension, elevated lipid, irregular menstrual period or no menstrual period (poly cystic ovarian syndrome), sleep apnea, bone problems, depression, poor self-esteem, social difficulties, peer discrimination and substance abuse etc. I know there are the high risks of heart attack, stoke, diabetes, hypertension... for them when they reach their middle ages.

Recently, I started a program at my office "Overweight 123" to enhance overweight management at Pediatric Primary Service. Parents, overweight kids, and I work as a team. We all know the long term risks of overweight and we are all willing to change our life style to control our weight. We are all know clearly what our roles with fighting overweight are. We meet together in a regular basis and we exchange our experiences of how to deal with hungry perception of our mind and how to satisfy our stubborn stomach. We all cheer for every pound lost, no weight gain, or slow weight gain. We all encourage each other and make plans for the next battle period. Of course, sometimes, we withdraw a little, but we can find ways to get back track to fight obesity. If we can do it, so can you.