Baby Steps in the Prevention of Childhood Obesity: IOM Guidelines for Pediatric Practice

The aim of this paper is to present an overview of the infancy-related guidelines from the Institute of Medicine (IOM, 2011) report “Early Childhood Obesity Prevention Policies” and highlight research studies that support their implementation in pediatric practice. Findings from recent studies of infant growth monitoring, feeding, sleep, and physical activity are presented. Research strategies that may be applied to today's clinical assessments and interventions are specified. Participation by pediatric nurses in the development of future multi-component interventions to prevent rapid infant weight gain is recommended.