While obese teens often get guidance from their doctors on how to lose weight, a new study from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality that overweight kids -- those headed for obesity -- aren't getting the same attention.

The study, which included 14,000 adolescents and teens who had been to the doctor at least once in the previous year, found that "obese adolescents were twice as likely as normal-weight kids to receive this advice, but overweight teens … were counseled far less than obese boys and girls," explains HealthDay. In all, doctors discussed healthy eating with only 47 percent of girls and 44 percent of boys involved in the study and told 36 percent they should exercise more.

The study's findings are troubling, the article goes on to explain, because preventing obesity is much easier than reversing it.

Continue at: http://consumer.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=665427

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