@ New obesity guidelines for kids

[raleighnc]

Jan 9, 2023 13:52:21 GMT -5 was5 said:

I hope the updated guidelines lead to more insurance coverage for medications for teens.

My 15 year old was referred to a pediatric endocrinologist by her pediatrician because her insulin levels were elevated. She is also considered obese (always in a high percentile for her weight but gained a lot during Covid when her school was remote for a year in middle school). He prescribed medication but it would have been $1200 per month. I have been overweight my entire life so I was happy to have an option for my daughter, until I realized how expensive it would be. Meeting with the endocrinologist was the first time I didn't feel moral judgement for being overweight myself or for my child being overweight. It was approached from a lens of predisposition due to genetics and I really appreciate that.

I think that this is absolutely one step towards better insurance coverage and access to all kinds of meds for metabolic issues in kids. And more support for viewing obesity in kids and its underlying metabolic causes as a disease and not always calories in/calories out or parent failure. In addition to supporting activity and better availability and affordability of a wide variety of food.

It will probably also have an effect on expanding clinical research on using these meds in children and an impetus for developing new meds for them. I think it's going to be similar to kids mental health - there is a lot more research and willingness to use medications to treat mood disorders in kids now than there was 10-20 years ago. A lot of people just assumed that kids don't have mental health issues unless there was trauma or the parents did something wrong. Just like a lot of people assume that kids don't have metabolic issues or obesity unless they or their parents are doing something wrong with their diet and exercise.

I hope you and your daughter get better access to whatever medications her doctors decide she needs.