ont face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Narrator: This is Science Today. Childhood and adolescent obesity has been increasing dramatically over the last generation and a lack of vigorous activity is a primary factor in this trend. Dr. Kevin Patrick, a professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of California, San Diego’s School of Medicine, says adolescent obesity is an issue of energy intake and energy expenditure.

Patrick: With respect to the expenditure of energy, the two clusters of considerations relate to how active kids are and how sedentary they are.

Narrator: From a research standpoint, Patrick says the understanding of activity and sedentary behaviors differ.

Patrick: Physical activity is a really different behavioral construct than a sedentary behavior and when we think about working with kids and families and settings from the school to the communities to clinical settings, we have to recognize that there really are different sorts of approaches that have to be taken, but they’re all part of this big equation of energy balance and that’s really the important thing that seems to have gone awry, over the last twenty years or so.

Narrator: For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.