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# Rewriting the obesity playbook
- URL: https://www.redeyebr.com/rewriting-the-obesity-playbook/
- Published: 2026-06-08T00:37:31.000Z
- Updated: 2026-06-08T00:37:31.000Z
- Description: Pennington Biomedical didn't just study the new childhood obesity framework. Three of its faculty helped write it.
- Author: JR Ball
- Tags: Last Call, News

Louisiana has some of the worst childhood obesity numbers in the country. A Baton Rouge research center just helped change how the world defines the illness—and the new approach finds sick kids that the old one missed.

**Why it matters:** More than 1 in 5 Louisiana children are obese—a rate among the highest in the nation. The researchers working to change that are in Baton Rouge.

**What BMI missed:** For decades, BMI alone determined whether a child was classified as obese.

- The new Lancet Commission framework—developed by 56 researchers worldwide—splits that into two categories. **Preclinical obesity** means excess body fat is present, but no measurable health damage has occurred yet. **Clinical obesity** means damage is already happening.
- The distinction matters because it identifies the intervention window before the engine light comes on.

**The Baton Rouge connection:** Pennington Biomedical didn't just apply the framework—three of its faculty helped write it. Drs. John Kirwan, Eric Ravussin and Philip Schauer all served on the Lancet Commission.

- Pennington researchers were then the first to apply it to U.S. children using nationally representative data from 2017–2023.
- The study was named Editor's Choice by the journal *Obesity*.

**The bottom line:** Researchers say the next step is to determine how this framework is integrated into pediatric clinical settings—and with more than 1 in 5 Louisiana kids already affected, that work can't come soon enough.