Children's Memorial Research Center creates Center on Obesity Management and Prevention

April 27, 2004 — Children's Memorial Institute for Education and Research creates Center on Obesity Management and Prevention

To provide a comprehensive approach to a problem that has made Chicago children among the most overweight in the nation, Children's Memorial Institute for Education and Research has created the Center on Obesity Management and Prevention (COMP). The announcement was made by Mary Hendrix, PhD, president and scientific director of the institute. Children's Memorial's research institute is the center for pediatric research at Northwestern University and the research arm of Children's Memorial Hospital.

"The Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health agree that childhood obesity has become the number one health threat for our young people, and pediatricians routinely see children who are overweight or at risk for overweight," said Hendrix. "To try to stem this epidemic, the institute is bringing together researchers, clinicians and advocates who are working to reduce the prevalence and prevent the consequences of childhood obesity."

Physicians at Children's Memorial and throughout the nation now routinely see children as young as 3 years old who are overweight, sometimes severely so. Many of them have other problems related to obesity such as skin and bone problems, sleep disorders, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and Type II diabetes, which used to be a predominately adult disease.

The Children's Memorial's research institute and Children's Memorial Hospital already have several key research projects under way. These include a study of methods for primary care pediatricians to identify overweight children and intervene early to prevent severe and progressive obesity; a study to identify obese children at risk of Type 2 diabetes before the disease develops; and a multi-center study that seeks to define improved methods for treating children who develop diabetes. Hendrix named Katherine Kaufer Christoffel, MD, MPH, attending physician at Children's Memorial Hospital and professor of pediatrics and preventive medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine to head the Center.

"This center creates the structure for a fully comprehensive approach to childhood obesity," said Christoffel. "It will bring together a critical mass of talent to address the scientific, medical, and psychosocial factors that contribute to childhood obesity and its consequences."

Christoffel is also the founder and medical director of the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC) . Funded in January 2003 by the Otho S.A. Sprague Memorial Institute, CLOCC is a multi-sector, multi-level, multi-disciplinary network that includes over 450 individuals and organizations working together to develop innovative ways to protect Chicago's children from the epidemic of childhood obesity.

Christoffel says Children 's Memorial's obesity research initiative will complement the community-based work currently be done by CLOCC by providing a enhanced scientific meeting ground for researchers engaged in this work.

"There is no more pressing challenge to scientists than to find means to manage and prevent childhood obesity," said Christoffel. "Progress in this area will affect millions of families and can protect the health of a generation."

Children's Memorial Hospital is the primary teaching hospital of Feinberg, and its physician-in-chief, Thomas P. Green, MD, is the chairman of pediatrics at Feinberg. The hospital is consistently ranked among the top pediatric hospitals in the country according to U.S. News & World Report.

For more information, contact Julie Pesch at 773.880.3055.