Shape Up America! is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization committed to raising awareness of obesity as a health issue. The mission of Shape Up America! is to provide evidence-based information and guidance on weight management to the public, health care professionals, educators, policymakers and the media.

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Founded in 1994, Shape Up America! is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization committed to raising awareness of obesity as a health issue and to providing responsible information on healthy weight management.

Assessing Childhood Obesity

Whether you are working in a clinical setting, school-based setting or a public health setting, if you are considering establishing an obesity screening or surveillance program, Assessment of Children contains valuable information that can help you decide which program is right for you and how to proceed. Assessment of Children will introduce you to the basic components of a Body Mass Index or BMI Screening Program or a BMI Surveillance Program and will give you examples of the kind of information you can generate with each. It has a brief section on “Initiating Interventions with Parents” and answers many basic questions about BMI and BMI z-scores.

The Shape Up America! Pediatric BMI Assessment Tool

This interactive tool permits health care professionals to calculate BMI and plot BMI percentiles on the CDC growth charts for children ages 2 to 20.

If you are a health care professional seeking more information, please visit our Professional Center.

Parent's Guide for the Assessment and Treatment of the Overweight Child

Do you have a child you think may be overweight or obese? The purpose of this Parent's Guide is to explain how overweight is assessed in adults and children. We discuss some of the essential components of successful approaches to weight management in children. Our goal is to provide you with the basic information you will need as a parent or caregiver of an overweight child. The information in this guide will provide a basis for you to identify professional resources in your community that you can reasonably expect to help you and your family work together to help your overweight child.

Download a copy of the Parent's Guide

School-based BMI Screening to Prevent Childhood Obesity

• Article by Ann Johnson, RN, MSN, CSN
• Sample letter — Child’s BMI below 5th percentile
• Sample letter — Child’s BMI between 5th and 84th percentile
• Sample letter — Child’s BMI between 85th and 94th percentile
• Sample letter — Child’s BMI equal to or above 95th percentile
• Sample opt-out letter
• K-12th grade BMI percentile chart, East Penn School District

• Article by Ann Johnson, RN, MSN, CSN
• BMI-for-age Growth chart — BMI percentile within expected norms
• BMI-for-age Growth chart — Increase in BMI percentile
• BMI-for-age Growth chart — Indication of future risk
• BMI-for-age Growth chart — Impact of medication
• BMI-for-age Growth chart — Decrease in BMI percentile

Some of the above files are provided in PDF format. You will need Adobe Reader in order to view them. To download Adobe Reader, click on the button below.