Special Edition: Dangerous New American Academy of Pediatrics Guidelines for Higher-Weight Children
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This is the Weight and Healthcare newsletter! If you like what you are reading, please consider subscribing and/or sharing! At their base, the guidelines recommend intentional weight loss for higher-weight children via “Intensive Health Behavior and Lifestyle Training” starting as early as age two (2) with drugs as young as twelve (12) and surgeries starting as early as age thirteen (13).
I am glad you dove into this, and look forward to reading the rest of the series. I was so utterly disgusted when I read about this. But I was also too angry - as someone who has had one of these surgeries, and also as someone who took Ozempic ONE time (and only one time because the side effects were that horrid) - to even think straight.
Thanks for this special edition. I knew it was bad when I saw the press release circulating but didn't realize how bad. This brief intro reads like a who's who of who wants to eliminate a certain subset of children from the planet. :(
I was expecting this. I'm sure you'll dig into the fact that just 5 years ago, the AAP put out guidelines that told pediatricians to stop telling children and teens to lose weight and instead, in a section called "Evidence-based Management Strategies," admitted that dieting doesn't work, that family meals help encourage healthier eating, that weight talk and teasing - especially from families - does long term damage to both mental and physical health, and that encouraging a positive body image promotes long term mental and physical health and a reduced risk of eating disorders.
In other words, they pushed doctors to accept HAES, although they didn't call it that, because the medical world STILL has a knee-jerk reaction to HAES with false beliefs that it "encourages ob*sity" (an absurd and stigmatizing phrase), promotes unhealthy lifestyles (when it does the opposite), and claims that "fat people are automatically healthy" (which, really, tells on how many doctors assume not-fat people are automatically healthy).
Frankly, I'm furious. The diabetes drug being pushed as a weight loss cure is a dangerous drug for -diabetics- and doesn't magically become safe when used for weight loss. The WLS industry is out of control. They used to deny WLS to people with eating disorders and who were under 18, but the call of the dollar sign has shoved that out of the way, based on half-assed studies that STILL don't show proper long term safety. We don't know - and won't know for decades - the long term health results of a 15-year-old who gets this surgery *while their body is still developing*. What will happen when they're 50? Will they even live until 50? Nobody knows.
This is horrifying and terrifying. Being fat does not kill children. Eating disorders kill children. Drugs and surgery that seriously injure and kill adults isn't going to be magically safe for teenagers. The AAP has put money before the lives of children.
Thank you for this Ragen, it’s so disturbing (yet entirely unsurprising) that these guidelines have come out. Especially in light of the Wegovy ‘developments’. UGH. Have written a little bit for my newsletter tomorrow and will link back to this information - thank you for taking the time to put it together xx
This is horrifying, even just the list of authors and their conflicts! I feel so helpless... is there anything at all that i can do besides join ASDAH??
Can you provide any links for the financial interests listed? I am having trouble tracking down that info and would like to provide references in something I am writing. I will definitely cite this as well of course.
I am glad you dove into this, and look forward to reading the rest of the series. I was so utterly disgusted when I read about this. But I was also too angry - as someone who has had one of these surgeries, and also as someone who took Ozempic ONE time (and only one time because the side effects were that horrid) - to even think straight.
Thanks for this special edition. I knew it was bad when I saw the press release circulating but didn't realize how bad. This brief intro reads like a who's who of who wants to eliminate a certain subset of children from the planet. :(
Wow. WOW! This is so disturbing. My heart hurts for the children who will be hurt by this. Thanks so much for the work you're doing to educate HCWs!
I’ve shared to Twitter and Facebook. Thanks for this excellent response to the horrific guidelines.
I was expecting this. I'm sure you'll dig into the fact that just 5 years ago, the AAP put out guidelines that told pediatricians to stop telling children and teens to lose weight and instead, in a section called "Evidence-based Management Strategies," admitted that dieting doesn't work, that family meals help encourage healthier eating, that weight talk and teasing - especially from families - does long term damage to both mental and physical health, and that encouraging a positive body image promotes long term mental and physical health and a reduced risk of eating disorders.
In other words, they pushed doctors to accept HAES, although they didn't call it that, because the medical world STILL has a knee-jerk reaction to HAES with false beliefs that it "encourages ob*sity" (an absurd and stigmatizing phrase), promotes unhealthy lifestyles (when it does the opposite), and claims that "fat people are automatically healthy" (which, really, tells on how many doctors assume not-fat people are automatically healthy).
Frankly, I'm furious. The diabetes drug being pushed as a weight loss cure is a dangerous drug for -diabetics- and doesn't magically become safe when used for weight loss. The WLS industry is out of control. They used to deny WLS to people with eating disorders and who were under 18, but the call of the dollar sign has shoved that out of the way, based on half-assed studies that STILL don't show proper long term safety. We don't know - and won't know for decades - the long term health results of a 15-year-old who gets this surgery *while their body is still developing*. What will happen when they're 50? Will they even live until 50? Nobody knows.
This is horrifying and terrifying. Being fat does not kill children. Eating disorders kill children. Drugs and surgery that seriously injure and kill adults isn't going to be magically safe for teenagers. The AAP has put money before the lives of children.
Ragen - Great work! I'd be interested in the reactions you got at the Grand Rounds.
This is horrifying, even just this list of authors and their obvious conflicts of interest!! I feel so helpless. What can I do? Besides join ASDAH??
Thank you for this Ragen, it’s so disturbing (yet entirely unsurprising) that these guidelines have come out. Especially in light of the Wegovy ‘developments’. UGH. Have written a little bit for my newsletter tomorrow and will link back to this information - thank you for taking the time to put it together xx
This is horrifying, even just the list of authors and their conflicts! I feel so helpless... is there anything at all that i can do besides join ASDAH??
Can you provide any links for the financial interests listed? I am having trouble tracking down that info and would like to provide references in something I am writing. I will definitely cite this as well of course.