INTRODUCION: Childhood obesity is a very recurrent problem that causes some complications which can be present in early stage of life, like orthopedic alterations. OBJECTIVE: To describe the locomotor system alterations in obese children and adolescents. METHODS: Articles were found in MEDLINE, SciELO, LILACS, ISI and Standford databases. The follow key-words were used: "children obesity", "orthopedic disorders", "posture", "gait" and "musculoskeletal pain", in Portuguese and English. RESULTS: This review could observe that obese children and adolescents are more predispose to have these complications than the eutrofic ones and the main problems are the postural alterations, like lumbar hiperlordosis and genu valgum. Musculoskeletal pains are also a common complaint, mainly back pain and knee pain. The main factors that can cause these problems are not well defined, but include an increase in body fat mass and in weight-bearing forces associated to a weaker bone in growth phase and the decrease in postural stability, which leads to a higher mechanical regional needs are some hypothesis. CONCLUSION: The early identification of these problems is essential for these children to receive the adequate multi-professional care.
Adolescent obesity; Childhood obesity; Orthopedic disorders; Musculoskeletal pain