University of Kansas Medical Center

Healthy Hawks Program
 
Healthy Hawks, named for the University of Kansas mascot, an obesity clinic program targeting children and adolescents ages 2 to 18, is located at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC). National obesity rates are increasing for children and adolescents, but in Kansas City, KS, they are rising even more rapidly. As roughly 30 percent of the city’s children are clinically overweight (i.e., double the national average), medical leaders at KUMC started the program in 2004 to provide a comprehensive pediatric treatment program.
 
NPHHI selected Healthy Hawks as a model program because it illustrates how public hospitals can offer an obesity treatment clinic for diverse and low-income children and adolescents on a small budget. Moreover, Healthy Hawks offers impressive outcome data that demonstrates its success, and thus far has experienced relatively low attrition rates for its participants.


For more information about this program, please contact:

Ann McGrath Davis, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Pediatrics
Adavis6@kumc.edu