A panel convened by the American Medical Association says doctors should stop using "fuzzy terms" to describe overweight children, according to this story in the Houston Chronicle.
Doctors have been using terms such as "at risk for overweight" and "overweight" for those others would consider obese for fear of stigmatizing children or hurting their self-esteem.
But the panels says that with the number of obese children rising, doctors need to be more blunt. About 17 percent of U.S. children are obese and one-third are overweight, using the committee's recommended definitions, according to the Chronicle. Obesity puts children at risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol problems and other ailments more commonly found in adults.