Childhood Obesity Diagnosis

Your WellStar pediatrician will use two key measures to decide whether your child struggles with obesity: growth charts and the Body Mass Index (BMI). Growth charts, developed by the Centers for Disease Control, are used throughout a child’s development to measure growth in both height and weight and the BMI is used to determine obesity. If a child’s BMI is greater than the 95th percentile, he/she is considered obese. In addition, your pediatrician might recommend blood tests to see if your child has high cholesterol or diabetes.