Supersized Kids Get Fit for Life
Source:Sunday News, Lancaster, PA. (August 25, 2002)
Obesity is at a record high among young people. The answer, experts say, is an old-fashioned one: Eat less and exercise more.
OAK PARK, Ill. (AP) - By now it's a well-known fact: The nation's younger generation is fatter than any before it, with 14 percent classified as obese or overweight.
Dana Jenkins was part of that statistic. An athletic but chubby kid much of his life, he weighed 212 pounds - 150 percent of his ideal body weight - at age 15. Then he decided to do something about it. "I had to," says Dana, now 17 and a senior in high school. "It was time."
With the help of a nutritionist and his family, he changed his eating habits, started exercising more and has dropped 30 pounds over the last two years. The method may sound tried true-and boring. But experts hope more young people will turn to healthier weight-loss methods, and ignore all the mixed messages about weight, from stick-thin models to "super-sized" fast food.
For some, it's a matter of avoiding serious health problems. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says obesity-related child hospitalizations have increased at a "disturbing" rate in the past 20 years. Diabetes diagnoses have nearly doubled, and sleep apnea related to childhood obesity is up fivefold.
Dr. Rebecca Unger, a Chicago pediatrician, has noted the trend in her private practice and at the Nutrition Evaluation Clinic at Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital, where Dana got help. "A lot of times when kids are referred, they're much worse off," Unger says. "They come in weighing 200 percent of what they should weigh."
Experts say the 14 percent obesity figure, which applies to children ages 6 through 19, represents a near-tripling of the number of severely overweight youth since the 1960s. They blame everything from young people's penchant for high-calorie snack foods and soft drinks to a more sedentary lifestyle encouraged by TV and computer games.
Busy parents-who play a key role in helping their children lose weight-also opt for quicker' high-calorie meals. "It's 7 o'clock and everyone's hungry. It's a lot easier to order a pizza than to prepare a balanced meal," says Kelly Schloredt, a staff psychologist and research associate at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle.
For Dana, who lives in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, spending too much time alone was part of the trouble. "It was more of a habit," he says of snacking on chips and cookies, sometimes entire packages of them. "If I was bored, I'd find myself in the kitchen."
He started riding his bike more, drank more water and ate breakfast. He also worked out at the YMCA with his mother, Norma, who joined Weight Watchers and added more salads, rice and other low-calorie foods to family meals.
YMCAs across the country are noting the trend and adding fitness programs for teens-part of a national movement to encourage young people to be more active. President Bush has launched fitness initiatives for children, while former Surgeon General David Satcher has a national summit on child obesity planned for October. Universities and corporate America are also getting involved.
Nicole Dearing, an 18-year-old from Valparaiso, Ind., was one of 250,000 who participated in program competitions in the last year. Earlier this month, she became a two-time national champion in her age category-and lost 20 to 25 pounds along the way.
Dana says losing weight has been an important boost to his self-image. And there's one other benefit his mother has noted. "More girls are calling," she says, looking at Dana, who just smiles and blushes.