STEP (Strategies for Teen Empowerment and Personal Health) is a weight and lifestyle management program that is part of the Division of Adolescent/Young Adult Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. The STEP approach is personalized and includes the specialties of medicine, nutrition, and behavioral health.
Mission statement
The mission of the STEP clinic is to prepare adolescents and young adults for a healthy life through personalized medical, mental health, and nutrition counseling. The STEP clinic provides guidance for adolescents living in larger bodies and those with emotional eating or binge eating disorder.
Who we serve
In STEP we are happy to treat patients of any gender identity from ages 12 and up. We accept patients of all socioeconomic backgrounds and with any co-occurring medical or mental health concerns.
What we have to offer
In the STEP clinic we have experienced medical, mental health, and nutrition providers who can provide assessments and treatment related to emotional eating, binge eating, overweight, and obesity. The treatment that we can offer includes:
- behavioral health counseling for issues such as emotional eating, binge eating, weight-based bullying, weight-based stigma, and mood issues
- nutrition education and counseling focusing on topics such as balanced meals, understanding hunger and fullness, meal planning, beverage choice, portions/serving size, and reading nutrition labels
- management of medical issues related to weight
- referral to other departments at Boston Children's, such as the Adolescent Weight Loss (Bariatric) Surgery Program, the Preventive Cardiology Clinic, the Sleep Center, and the Division of Endocrinology
- referral to medical, mental health, and nutrition providers in the community if Boston Children's is not convenient for you or if we determine that you would benefit from services that we do not provide.
If you are a parent looking for more information, check out our guide for young men and our guide for young women from the Center for Young Women’s Health and Young Men’s Health.
