Kids can get high blood pressure just like adults, but their's isn't as easy to diagnose. Here's a health care "to do" for parents.

Four years ago Kyle Linhares learned he had high blood pressure, so he took steps to lower it. "The last couple of times, it's been really good. It's been fairly steady at about 122, 123 over 70 or 75," says Kyle.

Keeping it in check now can help him avoid a stroke or heart disease down the road. Other kids may not be so lucky. "Our study would suggest that most children with hypertension are not recognized at all," says Dr. Matthew Hansen.

He studied the electronic medical records of 14,000 kids and found that only one in four who had hypertension, were actually diagnosed with it, "It's not something that you can do just by passively looking at their measures."

There's no target number for kids like there is for adults. What's considered normal varies with age, sex, height, and weight. And it changes as they grow. "I have to go to a book and look up all those things by table and then you find the number that's the goal for that particular child," says Dr. Maureen Mays.

Doctors say a tool that makes blood pressure easier to calculate might keep hypertensive kids from falling through the cracks. "In the age of electronic health records is, you can have a computer system that could potentially do it for you and track the child's blood pressure over time," says Dr. Hansen.

Until a system is developed, parents should make sure their child's blood pressure is measured accurately.

Dr. Mays says 85% of her pediatric patients have either elevated blood pressure or fully diagnosed hypertension. The vast majority due to a combination of poor diet and weight gain.