DOVER-FOXCROFT – About 30-40 percent of the youngsters Dr. David McDermott sees in his local practice are overweight or likely could be classified as at risk of being overweight.

The percentage is so troubling to McDermott that he and other care givers in Dover-Foxcroft Family Medicine have joined the Maine Youth Overweight Collaborative, a group of 12 primary care practices in the state working to identify methods to prevent obesity in youngsters in conjunction with Maine Harvard Prevention Research Center, Maine Chapter of American Academy of Pediatrics and the Maine Center for Public Health.

“I think it’s going to help open a dialogue between physicians and families about overweight issues,” McDermott said Monday, of the collaborative. “For years, we have looked at kids that we know are overweight, but we have not had the tools or the concepts to engage them in a dialogue about that.”

The collaborative was founded in May, and teams met for the first time earlier this month in Augusta.

Through the collaborative, the partners will be able to identify prevention methods and develop some educational programs to help move toward healthier lifestyles, he said.

Other members of the collaborative in the Bangor Daily News readership area include Kennebec Pediatrics in Augusta, Maine Coast Pediatrics in Ellsworth, Norumbega Pediatrics in Bangor and Waterville Pediatrics.

“I’m just totally amazed at the level of commitment of the practices and their interest in the topic of youth overweight,” Joan Orr, project director for the Collaborative at the Maine Center for Public Health, said Monday.

She said a $200,000 grant for a two-year period will provide funding for the effort, which will bring together clinical experts, primary care practices and community partners to share expertise and goals to improve the outcomes for overweight youngsters.

According to state statistics for 2003, about 17.4 percent of Maine kindergartners are overweight, with about 23 percent at risk of becoming overweight. For the same year, 18 percent of middle school pupils and 15 percent of high school students are at risk of being overweight, while 13 percent of both groups are overweight.

A child is at risk of being overweight with a body mass index in the 85th to 95th percentile for age and sex. A child is obese or overweight if they are above the 95th percentile.

Without intervention, the outlook is sobering, officials say. The federal Centers for Disease Control project that obesity will overshadow tobacco within 18 months as the leading cause of preventable death and disability in the United States. Obesity is associated with significant health problems among youth and is an important risk factor for adult morbidity and mortality.

“It takes a community to raise a child, but it takes an awareness on the part of the entire community to provide the right environment for kids to grow and develop healthy life habits,” McDermott said.

Because of this, McDermott and all other providers in the Piscataquis County region have formed an offshoot of the state collaborative called the Piscataquis County Youth Overweight Collaborative. It is the goal of the county collaborative to get everyone involved in the solution and on the “same page,” McDermott said.

He said the message should be the same in schools, medical practices, industries and community organizations. McDermott didn’t know whether other counties were taking the same initiative.

The focus of the participants in the state collaborative will be to measure and assess the BMI of youngsters and identify those at risk or who are overweight; to survey parents in the waiting room about eating behaviors; and to promote the “Keep Me. Healthy 5210 Power Up Message.”

The message numbers “5210” represent five servings of fruit and vegetables a day, two hours or less of television a day, one hour of physical activity and no sugar sweetened beverages.

The message is powerful, and it needs to be heard throughout the community, according to McDermott.

“We want a supportive and nurturing environment,” the physician said. “We need to help people recognize there are choices.”