Pediatric obesity has become an epidemic of seemingly unsurmountable proportions. This book provides perspectives on pediatric obesity for health care providers with such important topics as etiology, prevalence, diagnosis and management. Various complications and co-morbidities of obesity are also explored. The editors thank our many outstanding contributors from different parts of the United States and the world for their invaluable help in this publication. We hope that our readers will find this book useful as the health care profession and society in general seek to improve this serious epidemic as the 21st century continues.

This book is written for the primary care clinician to help update knowledge of pediatric endocrinology (with an emphasis on diabetes) from both ancient and modern times. The current and future shortage of pediatric endocrinologists necessitates steady, rejuvenated information on diabetes and other endocrine disorders for primary care clinicians as they care for the child and adolescent with complex endocrine dilemmas and disorders. In view of this shortage and the rapidly increasing knowledge in pediatric diabetes as well as understanding indications for referral to pediatric endocrinologists in the 21st century, au courant assiduous information aimed at primary care clinicians in these areas becomes increasingly important.

About 29 million Americans (9.3% of the population) in 2012 had diabetes. Approximately 1.25 million American children and adults have type 1 diabetes, and almost all diabetes in children less than 10 years of age is type 1. About 208,000 people younger than 20 years (0.25 % of this age group) have been diagnosed with diabetes (type 1 or type 2). Diabetes care requires a collaborative approach with multi-disciplinary professionals involved from the health, nursing, social and educational fields in order to provide optimal service to the child or adolescent and their family. Early diagnosis, treatment and monitoring can prevent or delay the long-term complications in various organs of the body, and regular care and service to this population is therefore essential. In this book, we provide a short overview of issues involved in diabetes care for children and adolescents.