Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the United States and continues to increase in prevalence in almost all countries in which it has been studied, including developed and developing countries around the globe. The causes of obesity are complex and multi-factorial. Childhood obesity becomes a life-long problem in most cases and is associated with long term chronic disease risk for a variety of diseases including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, as well as psychosocial as issues and obesity seems to affect almost every organ system in the body.

In recent years there has been tremendous progress in the understanding of this problem and in strategies for prevention and treatment in the pediatric years. Childhood Obesity: Causes, Consequences, and Intervention Approaches presents current reviews on the complex problem of obesity from the multi-level causes throughout early life before adulthood and the implications for this for long-term disease risk. It reviews numerous types of strategies that have been used to address this issue from conventional clinical management to global policy strategies attempting to modify the global landscape of food, nutrition, and physical activity. Each chapter is written by a global authority in his or her respective field with a focus on reviewing the current status and recent developments.

The book features information on contributing factors to obesity, including developmental origins, social/family, birth cohort studies, influence of ethnicity, and global perspectives. It takes a life-course approach to the subject matter and includes exhaustive treatment of contributing factors to childhood obesity, such as assessment, environmental factors, nutrition and dietary factors, host factors, interventions and treatment, consequences, and further action for future prevention. This broad range of topics relevant to the rapidly changing field of childhood obesity is suitable for students, health care professionals, physicians, and researchers.

Michael I. Goran is a professor of preventive medicine and pediatrics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He is also the founding director of the USC Childhood Obesity Research Center and holds the Dr. Robert C and Veronica Atkins Endowed Chair in Childhood Obesity and Diabetes. In addition, he serves as co-director of the USC Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute. He received his PhD from the University of Manchester in the UK. His work focuses on understanding the metabolic and nutritional factors linking obesity to increased disease risk during growth and development and using this information as a basis for developing interventions for prevention and risk reduction. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific articles and reviews and is the co-editor of the Handbook of Pediatric Obesity.