Promoting Healthy Weight

Maintaining a healthy weight during childhood and adolescence is critically important for children’s and adolescents’ overall health and wellbeing, as well as for good health in adulthood. A child’s or adolescent’s weight status is the result of multiple factors working together—heredity, metabolism, height, behavior, and environment.1 Two of the most important behavioral determinants are nutrition and physical activity. How much and what a child or adolescent eats and the types and intensity of physical activity she participates in can affect weight and therefore overall health. A balanced, nutritious diet and regular physical activity are keys to preventing overweight and obesity.