Scott Brown is right to draw attention to the absence of primary care involvement in the problem of childhood obesity.1 In our flagship university-linked research & teaching practice, awarded Beacon status for clinical excellence, we are barely registering the extent and seriousness of obesity in children, let alone responding to it. In August 2006 we had 2748 patients aged 0–16 years, with BMI measurements recorded for just 128 (4.6%). In 2005 13 children …