Paediatric obesity treatment during 14 years in Sweden: Lessons from the Swedish Childhood Obesity Treatment Register-BORIS.

Background: Treatment of paediatric obesity has been offered customarily and free of charge for more than 15 years in Sweden. The Swedish Childhood Obesity Treatment Register (BORIS) is a prospective register of children and adolescents undergoing obesity treatment.

Objectives: To investigate how patient characteristics and treatment efficacy has changed over 14 years on a national scale.

Methods: All subjects in BORIS with data from 2004 until 2017 were included, n = 21 499. Outcomes were age and BMI SDS at treatment initiation, dropout rates and treatment outcome up to 3 years after treatment initiation.

Results: Age and BMI SDS at treatment initiation have decreased during the years (both P < .0001). Of the patients who started treatment before 2009, more than 80% had at least 1-year follow-up. This number has decreased to about 60% in 2017. Since 2004, no trend in improvement of treatment results was observed when evaluating change in either BMI SDS or proportion of obesity remission. There was no difference between the sexes.

Conclusion: Although children in Sweden receive treatment at an earlier age, which is a major determinant of treatment success, and at a lower degree of obesity at treatment initiation, the effect of childhood obesity treatment on standard anthropometric measures has not improved over the investigated years.