Healthy Weight Program

Healthy Weight Clinic

About the Clinic

The Healthy Weight Clinic is a clinic for children ages 4-17 years who are overweight or obese and who have at least one of six medical issues related to their weight. Our goal is to provide a complete assessment of obesity-related illnesses; help organize care with medical specialists; and provide weight management using a family-based approach.

How the Healthy Weight Clinic helps children
When families visit the Healthy Weight clinic, our staff will evaluate children for weight-related medical issues, help make necessary appointments with other specialists and coordinate care with their primary care provider. After the first visit, families will come in for up to five follow-up visits within a year. We hope to help find barriers that may be keeping children from maintaining a healthy weight and living a healthy lifestyle. The team will help create a plan to manage your child's health and weight.

If you are a provider interest in referring patients to the Healthy Weight Clinic, please visit our section under For Healthcare Professionals.

If you are a family interested in visiting the Healthy Weight Clinic or have questions about appointments, please visit our section For Patient and Families.

For more, see our Healthy Weight Clinic Fact Sheet for Families.

Qualifying weight-related complications

Children who are overweight or obese may qualify for the Healthy Weight Clinic if they have one or more of the following weight-related complications:

Children whose BMI are equal to or greater than the 99th percentile may be seen in our clinic with or without a weight-related illness.

Children may need to have tests or lab work to confirm these illnesses. Please talk with your child's primary care provider to learn more about these weight-related complications.

How we know if a child is obese

Obesity means an excess amount of body fat. Clinicians use the body mass index (BMI) as a way to identify children and adolescents who are obese or at risk for becoming obese. BMI is a calculation that uses a child's height and weight to estimate how much body fat he or she has. Clinicians will use BMI to determine how appropriate a child's weight is for a certain height and age.

After BMI is calculated for children and teens, the BMI number is plotted on the CDC BMI-for-age growth charts (for either girls or boys) to obtain a percentile ranking. Percentiles are a way of showing how a child's measurements compare with kids the same age and gender. For example, if a child has a BMI in the 60th percentile, 59% of kids who are the same age and same gender have a lower BMI.

The Healthy Weight Clinic uses the following weight categories:

Weight Category Percentile Range
Overweight 85th to less than the 95th percentile for age and gender
Obese Equal to or greater than the 95th percentile for age and gender
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