Doubt cast on routine screening to pick up overweight and obese schoolchildren

In the Arch Dis Child 2007; 95: 416-22 authors suggest that rather than doing what seems right to do what the evidence shows. They are concerned that all the screening for obesity in schools does nothing for children. Long term studies suggest that there are currently no effective programs to reduce weight in obese chlidren. It has long been a tenet of public health surveillance that we do not screen when there is no evidence to show we have effective interventions. Yet we keep intervening in childhood obesity, found in schools, as though we made a difference.