The weight gain sparked concern among researchers who said further studies are needed to gauge the long term effects.
VOA: standard.2010.07.08
The measuring sticks for the rankings are nutrition, daily calories, drop-out rates and both short- and long-term weight loss scores from published clinical studies.
On Thursday, the Public Citizen Health Research Group petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ban the only approved long-term weight-loss drug, orlistat.
Karen Miller Kovach , its chief scientist, says the decision was made because there's no long-term data to show that weight-loss programs for children work.