Experts: Poor teens need help to fight obesity
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Study says poverty raises risk; local health staff urge education
By Amy L. Ashbridge
Staff Writer
The trick to breaking the cycle of poverty and becoming overweight or obese could come down to education, according to some in the area who work with children and their parents.
Teenagers who live in poverty are generally physically inactive, less likely to eat breakfast and more likely to drink sweetened beverages such as sodas, said Richard Miech, an associate professor of mental health with the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
Miech was an author of a study that was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That study said that teenagers who lived in poverty were more likely to become overweight.
"Almost all the adolescents who come into (a Maryland pediatrician’s) clinic don’t eat breakfast," Miech said recently. "They make up for it and even more so for the calories later in the day."
The federal poverty limit for a family of four is $20,000 per year, according to the 2006 Department of Health and Human Service guidelines.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 14.9 percent of the people in Otsego County live below the poverty line. That’s 8,546 of the county’s residents, according to the most recent figures.
The bureau said 12.9 percent of Delaware County residents live below the poverty line, with 14.4 percent of Chenango County reA lack of knowledge on the part of teenagers could also be an issue, Drake said. They are making their own food choices by that point, she said, and may not necessarily know what the healthiest options are.
Part of avoiding the cycle of living in poverty and then becoming overweight or obese involves education.
"Parents need to be proactive," said Dr. Chris Kjolhede, a pediatrician with Bassett Healthcare. "Ask the pediatrician, ’Is my child overweight?’ There are parents that do not recognize their children are overweight."
This has to be a multi-pronged approach, Kjolhede said.
"It’s got to be a broad effort," Kjolhede said recently. "It’s got to be in the lunch lines, and it’s got to be in the soda and snack machines."
Miech said more research needs to be done to see how best to reach teenagers, but Kjolhede said some things are being done already that work here.
One of those tools involves showing teenagers how much sugar is in the sodas that they drink, Kjolhede said.
"When you show them, they go, ’You’re kidding!’" Kjolhede said. "Then they begin to think."
Although the teens may not stop drinking soda immediately, Kjolhede said, they’ll eventually cut back on how much they drink.
Parents also need to be educated, Kjolhede said. It can be hard when there are convenience stores that are easily accessible and it’s more difficult to find healthier foods.
"We’ve got to educate families about buying vegetables and fruit," he said.
Addressing this issue is part of the reason the Healthy Milford project started, said Sabine Curry, chairwoman of the project and mayor of Milford.
Curry is also food-service manager at Milford Central School.
About 50 percent of the students at the school receive free or reduced-price lunches, she said.
Healthy Milford involves the community, school, parents and students in becoming active and healthy physically, mentally, and nutritionally.
Parents need to work with their children, Curry said, but it can be hard for them to do it alone — especially if they’re not used to getting exercise.
"They need to set an example," Curry said. "We all need to be a little active. We sit all day."
Students need to have the opportunity to be active, Curry said.
Otherwise, she said, they have "all this sugar, and no place to burn it."
Curry added, "It’s a vicious cycle."
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