O1035: Facilitating a Rapid Response to Concerns from Eating Disorder Colleagues After Release of the 2023 American Academy of Pediatrics Obesity Clinical Practice Guideline

Background: Youth with obesity are at higher risk for eating disorders, but primary and tertiary care provider recognition of disordered eating in youth with obesity is challenging and often delayed. Following the release of the AAP Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) for Evaluation and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Children and Adolescents, national eating disorder clinical, research, and advocacy organizations raised concerns for unintended repercussions from clinician adherence to CPG recommendations.

Project Description: The AAP Institute for Healthy Childhood Weight (IHCW) and CPG writing committee members strategized approaches to quickly address concerns from eating disorder colleagues and advocates. The IHCW convened a cross-organizational workgroup consisting of invited eating disorders experts and non-profit organizations, as well as primary and tertiary care writing committee and Section on Obesity members. A facilitated iterative process followed, consisting of 1) Listening to all perspectives, 2) Learning from each other, 3) Collaborating to identify and prioritize needs of primary care providers and 4) Creating resources for primary care providers to safely navigate the CPG.

Resulting resources included presentations given at high-impact conferences, free CME webinars, podcasts, and a summary AAP journal article. Additionally, in response to identification of an urgent need for a weight inclusive screening tool for pediatric eating disorders in primary care, a subgroup created and is now validating such an instrument.

The workgroup continues to meet monthly. Future activities include additional webinars and presentations on foundational, advanced and emerging topics directed at primary and tertiary care providers and dissemination of these resources to other child-serving healthcare professional organizations.

Discussion: The facilitation of Listening and Learning enabled by the AAP IHCW led to Collaboration and Creation of enduring content and other impactful resources about the co-existence of obesity and eating disorders. As other high-visibility CPGs, Policy Statements and Clinical Reports are developed, authors could be intentionally prepared to work with AAP Sections, Committees and Councils to implement similar processes to aid in rapid response to issues.

Conclusion: The release of the 2023 AAP Obesity CPG provided an opportunity to build awareness of the intersection of obesity and eating disorders and equip pediatric healthcare providers to identify and address disordered eating. A solutions-oriented approach was supported through AAP-facilitated listening and learning, followed by collaboration to prioritize and create learning opportunities and pragmatic tools.