Childhood obesity is a complex issue with no simple solutions, but involving the entire family in weight loss and health may help kids achieve their goals, a report finds.

A scientific statement released Monday in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Assn. reviews strategies shown to be successful in helping kids slim down. Some studies find that obese children can have symptoms normally associated with adult obesity, such as high blood pressure and cholesterol. Others suggest that overweight kids often turn into overweight adults.

Involving parents in weight loss efforts could go a long way in helping children change their behaviors, the authors said.

“In many cases, the adults in a family may be the most effective change agents to help obese children attain and maintain a healthier weight,” said Myles Faith, chairman of the American Heart Assn.’s  statement writing group, in a news release. “To do so, the adults may need to modify their own behavior and try some research-based strategies.”

Family involvement may help obese kids lose weight – latimes.com

Overweight girls in their late teens were twice as likely as their normal-weight peers to report having a lot of acne in a large new survey of Norwegian teenagers that did not find the same link in boys.

Some 3,600 young people in Oslo, aged 18 and 19, provided information on their pimples, weight, diet and other health and lifestyle factors.

Only about a tenth of the girls and 15 percent of the boys fell into the overweight or obese categories, based on their body mass index a measure of weight relative to height.

But among the overweight and obese girls, 19 out of every 100 said they had experienced a lot of acne in the past week, compared to 13 of every 100 normal-weight girls who reported recent acne.

When the researchers took into account other potential influences, such as diet, smoking and “mental distress,” they determined that overweight and obese girls were twice as likely to have acne.

Obesity and acne: Overweight teen girls twice as likely to develop skin condition – thestar.com