Does your 8-year-old need cholesterol drugs? Maybe, according to hotly disputed new recommendations. But first check out the many other strategies that can control your kids' cholesterol and boost the health of your whole family.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is calling for overweight and other high-risk children as young as 2 years old to have cholesterol blood tests. The suggested treatment for kids with unhealthy levels of blood fats: weight loss, increased exercise, nutritional counseling and, if Junior has hit the ripe old age of 8, cholesterol drugs such as statins.

"To be frank, I'm embarrassed for the AAP today," Dr. Lawrence Rosen of Hackensack University Medical Center told The New York Times. "Treatment with medications in the absence of any clear data? I hope they're ready for the public backlash," said Rosen, vice chairman of an AAP panel on traditional and alternative medicine.

However, Dr. Stephen Daniels, a member of the AAP's nutrition committee, mentioned that the guidelines were based in part on recent research demonstrating the safety of cholesterol-lowering drugs in children, and predicted that the new guidelines would result in long-term health benefits.

The academy says there are good reasons for its revised guidelines. "This report has taken on new urgency given the current epidemic of childhood obesity with the subsequent increasing risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease in older children and adults," the AAP announced in releasing its recommendations. The organization in its statement recommended that children between the ages of 2 and 10 years undergo cholesterol screening if they have a family history of hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol) or heart disease, an unknown family history, or risk factors such as obesity and diabetes.