According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the childhood obesity rates nationwide were 24.9% amongst children between the ages of six through 12. The rates reported from the Texas State Department of Health revealed a 29.9% in children in the same category. Local data from The State of Obesity in Texas showed a rate of 35.7% in Laredo, Texas. The most recent US Preventative Services Task Force issued a level B recommendation for clincians to screen for obesity in children and adolescents six years older and offer or refer for comprehensive, intensive behavioral interventions to promote improvements in weight status. Healthy People 2020 has goals related to various ages and specific health topics. the nutrition and weight status 10 goal is to “Reduce the proportion of children and adolescents who are considered obese”. The intervention in this scholarly project included: 1) Identifying patients that met criteria. 2) Alert medical assistants to provide Traffic Light Diet (TLD) to health care providers (HCPs) based on weight and BMI. 3) The HCP addressed obesity and provided dietary couseling using the TLD brochure. Documentation of nutritional couseling was entered in the “Preventative Medicine” section of the electronic medical record (EMR). Comparison of pre- and post- implementation data revealed an increase in documentation addressing nutritional counseling for at risk Hispanic youth in Laredo, Texas.
