Helping Your Overweight Child: A Do-It-Yourself Guide

The childhood obesity epidemic in the United States is no secret. Few pediatricians, however, are equipped with the know-how to educate parents on ways to prevent obesity, or help with the complicated process of encouraging weight loss in an already obese child. Dr. Myung K. Park, MD, FAAP, FACC, a noted pediatric cardiologist, is on the cutting edge of pediatric obesity studies. In Helping Your Overweight Child: A Do-It-Yourself Guide, Park offers practical advice for concerned parents based on twenty years of experience studying the childhood obesity epidemic.

As a pediatric cardiologist, Park long ago recognized the connection between lifetime heart health and healthy weight. In the 1990s, he founded one of the first clinics dedicated to the study of pediatric obesity, the Preventative Cardiology and Weight Management Clinic at the University of Texas Medical School, San Antonio.

Helping Your Overweight Child puts prevention and treatment in the hands of a child’s family, negating the need for ineffective government programs or expensive private weight loss programs. The book notes the exact steps that Park would take if a parent brought a child to the clinic for treatment. Through education at the family level, Helping Your Overweight Child is a long overdue tool for proactive and empowered parents.

Myung K. Park, MD, FAAP, FACC, is a pioneer in the field of childhood obesity studies. Park, an orphaned refugee from North Korea who fought in the Korean War as an infantry soldier in the South Korean Army, worked his way through medical school at Seoul National University College of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea. He completed his postgraduate training at Georgetown University and the University of Washington, and is professor emeritus and retired chief of pediatric cardiology at the University of Texas Medical School.

In the 1990s, Park recognized the connection between unhealthy childhood weight and coronary heart disease. He founded one of the first clinics dedicated to the treatment and prevention of childhood obesity, the Preventative Cardiology and Weight Management Clinic at University of Texas Medical School.

Park has written three noted pediatric cardiology books, including Park's Pediatric Cardiology for Practitioners, Park's Pediatric Cardiology Handbook, and How to Read Pediatric ECGs. He's a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics (FAAP) and the American College of Cardiology (FACC). He and his wife of forty-eight years have three sons and two granddaughters.