Pediatric Residency Obesity and Overweight Training Curricula: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background. Pediatric obesity has become a significant public health concern. Pediatricians are the ideal group to help identify and treat this epidemic, but unfortunately, many pediatricians are not trained to discuss obesity with patients and their families. Standardized training initiatives for pediatric residents on prevention and/or management of obesity are needed to equip emerging pediatricians to combat the obesity epidemic. Objectives. This systematic literature review aims to examine the effectiveness of childhood obesity prevention/counseling resident training interventions. Methods. A comprehensive literature search was performed using preidentified search terms and limited to articles published prior to November 6, 2019. Articles were analyzed by 2 reviewers with a standardized evaluation tool. Results. A total of 698 articles were identified by the search. These were reduced to 111 articles after title review and 11 articles following abstract/full paper review. The 11 articles described 10 different obesity training interventions for residents. The articles varied in their size, length of training session, and study design. Despite these variations, all articles outlined positive outcomes, including an increase in physician confidence, positive changes in behavior, and/or improved electronic medical record documentation. Conclusions. With the continued increase in pediatric obesity, there is a need for practical, easy-to-implement, standardized trainings for pediatric residents on obesity prevention and treatment. More investigation needs to be done to look at long-term results of current interventions as well as other outcomes such as whether physicians are correctly identifying patients who are overweight or obese and whether there is improvement in patient follow-up.