A study has shown that four antipsychotic drugs cause weight gain in youth that were taking them. Some of the children in the study gained just under two pounds a week during the study.

As childhood obesity rates continue to increase, experts agree that more information is needed about the implications of being overweight as a step toward reversing current trends. Now, a new University of Missouri study has found that overweight children, especially girls, show signs of the negative consequences of being overweight as early as kindergarten.

Despite recent widespread media attention given to studies that have indicated one-third of American children have a weight problem, a new study shows just one-third of children who are overweight or obese actually receive that diagnosis by a pediatrician.

Children who are overweight or obese are over two and a half times more likely to suffer injuries to their upper and lower extremities following a motor vehicle crash compared with normal weight children, according to a new report from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Injury Research and Policy.

Regular exercise seems to reduce anger expression in overweight but otherwise healthy children, researchers said.

More than four in 10 parents with underweight and overweight children mistakenly believe their children are in the average weight range, according to University of Melbourne research.

Short sleep time is associated with overweight in children and adolescents, a core aspect of which may be attributed to reduced REM sleep, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Thursday at SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).

Children who drink 100-percent juice are no more likely to be overweight and may have a better overall nutrient intake than children who do not drink juice, according to a report in the June issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Every day our children are bombarded with advertisements -- quite often for products that are harmful to them. Each year, the average child sees about 40,000 commercials on television alone, according to communications professor Dale Kunkel of the University of Arizona; the majority of ads targeted at them are for candy, sugared cereal, soda and fast food.

Maybe when we were their age, we walked five miles to school, rain or shine. So why don't most children today walk or bike to school?

Entrenched sedentary behavior such as watching television and playing computer video games has been the bane for years of parents of overweight children and physicians trying to help those children lose pounds.

Overweight Hispanic children with normal blood glucose (sugar) levels showed elevated markers for blood vessel inflammation that may predispose them to developing both type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, says a new study led by researchers from the Joslin Diabetes Center.