Obesity Prevention Science

Prevention Methods

Some of the most effective child and adolescent obesity prevention programs have been developed by researchers at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford's Center for Healthy Weight and the Stanford University School of Medicine.

• Over the past two decades, tens of thousands of children, their families and their schools in Santa Clara, San Mateo and Alameda counties have participated in our child and adolescent obesity prevention research programs.

• Pediatric researchers at the Stanford Prevention Research Center have pioneered the successful application of behavioral theories to family-based, school-based and community-based interventions for children and adolescents to:
  
  • Increase physical activity
  • Reduce sedentary behaviors (activities that require little or no physical activity)
  • Improve eating habits
  • Reduce weight gain

A majority of this research is conducted with low-income and/or ethnic minority populations. These groups have been most severely affected by the obesity epidemic and its negative effects on health and well-being.