Treating and Preventing Adolescent Obesity —
Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 12 noon (EST)

Ellen Rome, MD, MPH, currently serves as Head of the Section of Adolescent Medicine at Cleveland Clinic. She is a board-certified Pediatrician who was also among the first in the United States to be board-certified in adolescent medicine. Dr. Rome received her undergraduate degree in psychology, magna cum laude, from Yale University in 1984. She received her medical degree and was initiated into Alpha Omega Alpha in 1988 from Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine, then completed an internship and residency in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She next completed a three-year fellowship in adolescent medicine at Children's Hospital, Boston, during which time she also obtained a Master's Degree in Public Health at the Harvard University School of Public Health.

Dr. Rome currently serves as an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. She helped start the first Adolescent Health track at the new School of Public Health at Case Western Reserve University, and coordinates the Adolescent Medicine rotation at Cleveland Clinic for residents and medical students.

She is active on the board of the North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology, as well as on the board of the Federation of International Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology. She chaired the 2005 and 2007 national courses on Adolescent Medicine: PREP The Course, and has chaired the Media Committee for the Academy for Eating Disorders.

Dr. Rome is an advocate on the epidemic of children and obesity in today's society, the risks associated with childhood obesity, and how we as parents, educators, and community members can help curve the scale. The effects of childhood obesity are many and varied. The physical risk to a child has been viewed as controversial and data are not clear on the independent contribution of childhood obesity toward adult-onset illnesses. Obesity in childhood has been identified as an independent risk factor related to other serious health conditions.

Dr. Rome's research interests include obesity and eating disorders, preventive medicine and reproductive health. She has been an invited speaker locally, nationally and internationally on various topics in adolescent medicine, while maintaining a commitment to ongoing teaching of house staff and students in the local and surrounding areas. She has written and published on various adolescent medicine topics, including obesity and eating disorders, the female athlete triad, nutrition for the teen athlete and adolescent sexuality.