Obesity in Youth: Causes, Consequences, and Cures

Rates of obesity in youth have tripled in the past 20 years. Today it is estimated that over twenty percent of American children and adolescents are overweight. This emerging epidemic has stimulated a great deal of new research into the formative influences and the interpersonal, social and psychological effects of obesity on children. In this thorough and incisive book, editors Leslie Heinberg and J. Kevin Thompson have employed an august group of researchers to describe these trends and to discuss their implications for the assessment, treatment, and prevention of obesity in youth.

The book opens by acquainting readers with key genetic influences and dietary patterns, and later chapters on treatment and prevention are written from medical and public health perspectives. But contributors focus primarily on psychological aspects of obesity such as teasing, body image, and co-morbidity with mental disorders as well as the psychosocial consequences for children, families and the larger society. This wide-ranging volume will be of great use for public and mental health professionals, as well as academics and researchers who seek a fuller understanding of the fight against childhood obesity.

Leslie J. Heinberg, PhD, is an associate professor of medicine for the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, and director of behavioral services for the Bariatric and Metabolic Institute of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio. She previously served as clinical director of Healthy Kids/Healthy Weight, a comprehensive, multidisciplinary evaluation and intervention pediatric obesity program at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Heinberg coauthored (with J. Kevin Thompson) the book Exacting Beauty: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment of Body Image Disturbance (American Psychological Association, 1998) and has published more than three dozen articles related to body image, eating disorders, and obesity. She has also served as a coinvestigator on six federally funded studies of obesity prevention and treatment or body image.

J. Kevin Thompson, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa. He has written, edited, or coedited five books on the topics of obesity, eating disorders, and body image: Body Image, Eating Disorders and Obesity: An Integrative Guide for Assessment and Treatment (American Psychological Association [APA], 1996); Exacting Beauty: Theory, Assessment and Treatment of Body Image Disturbance (APA, 1998); Body Image, Eating Disorders, and Obesity in Youth (two editions; APA, 2001, 2009); and The Muscular Ideal: Psychological, Social, and Medical Perspectives (APA, 2007).