Willie Horton’s Batting for Kids a Success!

On August 5th,  Medical Weight Loss Clinic participated as a sponsor at the 10th Annual Willie Horton’s Batting for kids.  Over 375 kids ranging from 8-15 years of age can came down to Comerica Park for the all day event.  They had the opportunity to show off their baseball skills in activities such as base running, pitching, speed pitching and batting.

Medical Weight Loss Clinic hosted the lunch and nutrition portion of the event teaching kids how to eat healthier and the importance of nutrition.  Also in attendance were about 25 volunteers from the Detroit office of the FBI doubling as both mentors and security for the day.

The event benefitted Don Bosco Hall, a community outreach group which serves at risk children and their families.
 Click here for more information on Don Bosco Hall.

Photos from the participating staff at Medical Weight Loss Clinic:

Physician counseling may improve health behaviors for teens

Physician counseling, at-home follow-up may improve teen health behaviors

A program that combines advice from a primary care physician with computer assessment, mailings and phone calls may help teens improve some aspects of their diets and physical activity levels, according to a study in the February issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Obesity is an increasing problem among American adolescents, according to background information in the article. In the past 30 years, the percentage of teens aged 12 to 19 years who are obese has increased from 6 percent to more than 16 percent in 2002. The average child aged 6 to 11 also ate 133 more calories per day in 2000 than in 1990, and less than 40 percent of teens get the government-recommended hour of daily physical activity.

Kevin Patrick, M.D., M.S., of the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues assessed the effectiveness of one intervention designed to improve diet and physical activity habits among teens, the Patient-centered Assessment and Counseling for Exercise + Nutrition (PACE+) . From May 2001 through June 2002, the researchers recruited 819 adolescents between the ages of 11 and 15 years. They assigned 424 participants (222 girls and 202 boys) to a group receiving PACE+, which begins with a computer screening and goal-setting tool completed in a primary care physician’s office. After a three- to five-minute counseling session with the doctor, the teen and his or her parents took home educational materials. They then received one year of personalized mailings and brief follow-up phone calls from trained research staff. A control group of 395 teens (216 girls and 179 boys) did not participate in the PACE+ program. Each group was assessed at six months and one year.

After one year, adolescents in the PACE+ program reduced their sedentary behaviors by one hour per day, while those in the other group did not. “This is important given that sedentary behaviors can decrease energy intake in nonoverweight adolescents and has been suggested as an important component of interventions to prevent obesity and regulate body weight,” the authors write. Boys in the PACE+ group also increased their number of active days per week and were more likely to meet the hour daily exercise requirement, and more girls in that group met the government’s guidelines for maximum percentage of daily calories from saturated fat. Since 64 percent of the teens in the PACE+ group completed at least nine of the 11 scheduled follow-up calls, the intervention is feasible, the authors report.

Source: JAMA and Archives Journals 

Kids: You are what you’re parents eat?

New factor in teen obesity: Parents

Research shows teens more likely to consume fast food, soda if parents do

There may be a reason teenagers eat more burgers and fries than fruits and vegetables: their parents. 

In a new policy brief released today by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, researchers found that adolescents are more likely to eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day if their parents do. Contrarily, teens whose parents eat fast food or drink soda are more likely to do the same.

Every day, more than 2 million California adolescents (62 percent) drink soda and 1.4 million (43 percent) eat fast food, but only 38 percent eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables, according to the policy brief, “Teen Dietary Habits Related to Those of Parents.”

The cause of the deficit of healthy foods in teen diets has been attributed in part to the high concentration of fast food restaurants in certain cities and neighborhoods and other environmental factors.

The new research is a reminder, however, that “good dietary habits start at home,” according to center research scientist Susan H. Babey, a co-author of the policy brief. “If parents are eating poorly, chances are their kids are too.”

Nearly one-third (30 percent) of California’s teenagers are overweight or obese. Poor dietary habits, along with environmental and other factors, are strongly linked to obesity.

The policy brief, which was funded by a grant from the California Endowment, drew upon the responses of thousands of California teenagers queried by the center-administered California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the nation’s largest state health survey. Among the brief’s findings:

 

• Teens whose parents drink soda every day are nearly 40 percent more likely to drink soda every day themselves than teens whose parents do not drink soda.
• Teens whose parents eat five servings of fruits and vegetables daily are 16 percent more likely to do the same than teens whose parents do not eat five servings a day.
• Nearly half of adolescents (48 percent) whose parents drink soda every day eat fast food at least once a day, while only 39 percent of teens whose parents do not drink soda eat fast food at least once daily.
• 45 percent of teens whose parents do not eat five servings of fruits and vegetables daily eat fast food at least once a day, while only 39 percent of teens whose parents eat five servings a day eat fast food at least once daily.

 

“The research shows us that one of the keys to solving the teen obesity crisis starts with parents, but we must also improve the abysmal food environments in many low-income communities,” said Dr. Robert K. Ross, president and chief executive officer of the California Endowment. “While parents are the primary role models for their children and their behavior can positively — or negatively — influence their children’s health, it is also essential that local officials representing low-income communities work to expand access to fruits, vegetables and other healthful foods.”

Educating parents about unhealthy food choices, as well as how to plan and prepare healthier fare, would help in reducing teen obesity, according to the authors of the policy brief. They also recommend employment policies that promote a better work-life balance. Given a more flexible schedule, more families might have time to prepare food at home and engage more often in family meals — an activity that has been linked to healthier lifestyles.

Healthy “food environments,” such as supermarkets, farmers markets and other retail food outlets that offer fruits and vegetables instead of fast food, are also important in helping parents and teens practice healthy behaviors, the brief’s authors said.

Source: University of California – Los Angeles 

Regular exercise helps obese youths reduce, reverse risk for heart disease, study shows

Regular exercise can help obese children shrink more than just their waistlines, new research shows. The activity also can help them to reduce – and even reverse – their risk of developing cardiovascular disease, including hardening of the arteries.

The research, conducted at the University of Rostock in Germany, appears in the Nov. 7, 2006 edition of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

“We think the most important message is that atherosclerosis – hardening of the arteries – starts during childhood in the presence of such risk factors as obesity and sedentary lifestyle,” said lead researcher Andreas Alexander Meyer, MD, a pediatrician and pediatric cardiologist at the University of Rostock Children’s Hospital. “Regular exercise is one of the most important activities we can do on our own to reduce the risk and reverse the early development of atherosclerosis.”

This information is vital, Dr. Meyer said, as the need continues to grow to help children protect their health without becoming dependent upon prescription medications. According to the World Health Organization, childhood obesity already is “epidemic in some areas and on the rise in others.” Worldwide, an estimated 22 million children under age 5 are overweight. In some countries, including the United States, more than 30 percent of all children are considered obese.

For their study, Dr. Meyer and his colleagues defined obesity as having a body mass index (BMI) in excess of the 97th percentile for German children. BMI is determined by a mathematical formula that uses height and weight to calculate body fat.

In adults, a BMI between 18 and 24.9 is considered normal, a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight, and a BMI of 30 or more is considered obese. Specific ranges don’t exist for children, but most of the teen-agers in the University of Rostock study had BMIs ranging from 24 to 35.

Compared with normal children, the obese youths also already were showing signs of early hardening of the arteries as well as thickening of the arterial lining where atherosclerosis originates.

For the study, the researchers randomly assigned 67 obese teens to one of two groups. The first group exercised three times per week for six months. The youths participated in an hour of swimming and aqua aerobics on Mondays, 90 minutes of team sports on Wednesdays, and 60 minutes of walking on Fridays. The other teens added no exercise to their normal routines.

After six months, the researchers found that the youths who were exercising regularly had significantly improved the flexibility of their arteries, allowing the arteries to carry more oxygen-rich blood to the body when needed. The teens also had shrunk the expanded inner layer of their arteries and reduced several other risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including lowering their BMIs, cutting triglyceride and cholesterol levels, and lowering blood pressure.

Previous research has indicated that the heart-healthy benefits of exercise wear off if regular activity is discontinued, Dr. Meyer said, so encouraging all children to maintain an exercise routine is important.

“We think that 90 minutes of exercise, three times per week is the minimum children need to reduce their cardiovascular risk,” Dr. Meyer said. “And it’s important that children enjoy exercise, so we recommend games like soccer, football, basketball and swimming – especially for obese children.

“Low perseverance and motivation seem to be distinctive for overweight children,” he said, noting his concern over the number of teens who dropped out of the six-month study. “We have intensive talks with children and their parents about their medical status and vascular changes. We let them know that it is their own decision to change their prognosis.”

To help children to monitor their success, Dr. Meyer recommends regular visits to the pediatrician combined with continuous support and encouragement from parents.

Albert P. Rocchini, MD, did not participate in the research, but is a pediatric cardiologist at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan. Dr. Rocchini said he, too, is concerned about motivating overweight children, especially teen-agers, to lead healthier lives.

“That’s a very difficult problem,” Dr. Rocchini said. “Sometimes education helps to let them know that they aren’t invincible and they do have factors that will affect them very adversely as they grow older. We want young people to understand that now is the time to start dealing with health issues before they become permanent. But it takes time to get through to them.”

Studies like this help with the education process, Dr. Rocchini said, because they show how and why carrying extra weight can lead to cardiovascular disease. Not all previous studies have documented vascular changes in obese children.

“I would take this as good and bad news,” Dr Rocchini said of the study. “The bad news is, (early evidence of disease) is there, but the good news is it’s not fixed and permanent. There’s something you can do to make it better. That’s the important message to share with people.”

Source: American College of Cardiology