Center hosts childhood obesity conference
April 7, 2007
By Stephen Seitz Herald Staff
BROWNSVILLE — There are ways to teach adolescents and their younger counterparts healthy living habits, and the Southern Vermont Area Health Education Center examined some of them at an all-day workshop for health professionals held at the Mt. Ascutney resort on Wednesday.
"Adolescents are not an age group that is well understood," said SVAHEC executive director Nancy Lenoue. "We need to get information to the professionals."
More than 100 physicians, nurses, teachers, social workers and other professionals learned about such topics as understanding the nature of childhood obesity and eating disorders, how to talk to kids about being overweight without triggering an eating disorder, and new approaches to the problem of childhood obesity, which was the topic of Dr. David Ludwig's keynote address.
Ludwig is an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard and directs the Children's Optimal Weight for Life Program at Children's Hospital in Boston. He is the author of the forthcoming book on childhood obesity titled, "Ending the Food Fight."
Ludwig said that what is needed to treat obesity and avert the onset of Type 2 diabetes is to slow down the surge in blood sugar that follows a meal, and to return more traditional ways of eating and exercising.
"Consumption of sweetened soda has increased 500 percent since the 1950s," Ludwig said, noting that he wasn't all that fond of the food pyramids periodically updated by the government.
"Without any specific guidance on this point, the food industry weighs in," said Ludwig. "They're putting out low-fat Twinkies and calling them health food."
Instead, Ludwig suggested making good food flavorful for children.
"I see no reason to restrict oils," he said. "You have to use some common sense, of course, but there's nothing wrong with cooking vegetables in a little olive oil. It makes them taste better."
Ludwig described a vicious cycle that makes adolescents gain weight: too much TV and computer time, eating junk food during these times, and not spending enough time moving around. He also said not to confuse exercise with physical activity.
"Exercise is not related to weight loss," he said, though he did note that exercise is important to good health. "Physical activity is not the same as exercise. Lean people, for instance, are constantly moving, and they burn 350 calories a day."
Ludwig advised keeping the TV set off during meal times, not allowing more than two hours of viewing per day, and to combine physical activities with fun. He further noted that unhappy and dysfunctional homes more often produce overweight children.
"They are overwhelmingly from psychosocial environments that don't support them," he said.
Lanoue is directly involved with addressing the problems of childhood obesity, as she also directs SVAHEC's 30+5 program which works with a number of schools and health care organizations in Windsor County to get middle schoolers eating more healthily and becoming more physically active.
The program's name reflects its goal of getting students to exercise vigorously for 30 minutes, and to eat at least five fruits, every day.
"We're gearing up for the next school year," she said. "We'll be assessing the students' fitness logs, and assess the activities. The activities have become quite popular, so we'll have more of them."
More information on SVAHEC's programs can be found on its Web site,
www.southernvermontahec.org.
Childhood Obesity