Variation in establishing a diagnosis of obesity in children.

Consensus guidelines provide recommendations for the diagnosis and management of obesity. We conducted a medical record review of children initially diagnosed with obesity at a general pediatrics visit. The diagnosis was made most often at health maintenance visits (46%).

Physical activity attitudes of African American and white adolescent girls.

Background: Understanding the attitudes of African American adolescent girls toward physical activity may help identify strategies to enable these adolescents to adopt a more physically active lifestyle that could track into adulthood.

Objective: To identify and compare attitudes of African American adolescent girls toward physical activity with the attitudes of white adolescent girls.

Methods: Six focus groups (N = 49) were conducted with 9th- through 12th-grade African American and white adolescent girls.