New directions in behavioral intervention development for pediatric obesity

Almost one out of every three US children is overweight or obese, with minority youth at highest risk. There are limited efficacious pediatric obesity interventions available for clinicians, and successful weight loss trials for minority youth are rare. Even fewer interventions have been shown to significantly improve clinical health outcomes such as adiposity, blood pressure, and cholesterol level, and maintenance of behavior change over the long-term remains a challenge Translation I research in which "bench" findings are applied to the "bedside" is uncommon in the behavioral arena. Thus, advances in our understanding of fundamental human processes such as motivation, emotion, cognition, self-regulation, decision-making, stress, and social networks are not being optimally applied to our most pressing behavioral health problems. This issue of Pediatric Clinics will focus on promising behavioral treatments "in the pipeline" that have been translated from basic behavioral science and are the process of refinement and proof of concept testing.