Stop Typecasting Overweight Kids

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healthywordsFrom Your Health Journal…..”I love so many articles from the Huffington Post, and enjoyed one today I found written by Dr. Randi Hutter Epstein called Stop Typecasting Overweight Kids. First, let’s review how childhood obesity (and obesity in general) is growing throughout the world. So many children are not eating properly and not getting enough physical activity. Add to the mix all the technology and sedentary lifestyle, we have a generation of children who may not be healthy adults. But, we need to stop typecasting these children, as thinking of them as fat and lazy, but recognize they are people with feelings, who can make a positive contribution the their families and society as a whole. Great things are going on in many places to help obese / overweight children, especially at Duke University where they have started the Duke Healthy Lifestyle Program. According to Dr. Sarah Armstrong, a pediatrician and director of the Duke Healthy Lifestyle Program, the children in her program sing, dance and do all sorts of things that are not the typical portrayals of these children. Please visit the Huffington Post site (link provided below) not only support Dr. Epstein’s article, but the great work Dr. Armstrong is doing at Duke University. Every little bit helps children lead productive and healthy lives, both physically and mentally.”

To read the article…..

Let’s be honest, this is what you picture when you hear about childhood obesity: a chubby, lazy kid gorging on junk food in front of a computer. As opposed to say, the other kind of kids who are not only thin and outdoorsy but also popular and multi-talented.

Maybe that’s stretching it a bit — none of us are quite that judgmental — but the way experts see it, all too many overweight children feel typecast, which is not only emotionally scarring but a huge barrier to letting them reach their fitness goals. This is one of the key points in a welcome new program launched at Duke and aimed at children and their families.

“If you watch the kids on Biggest Loser, what you see portrayed is always unflattering shots and these kids doing unhealthy things. But in reality many overweight kids do great things. They sing. They dance. They do all sorts of things that are not the typical portrayals of these children,” said Dr. Sarah Armstrong, a pediatrician and director of the Duke Healthy Lifestyle Program.

Her program includes talking to the children — mostly adolescents — and their families about healthy eating, and providing them with a fitness routine at a local gym. A program for the entire family to do together.

And while the program is too new to know whether it will work — meaning whether it will truly inspire long-term behavior changes — recent findings suggest they are doing the right thing. When a group of toddlers from poor families in New York City were enrolled in a nutrition program, obesity rates shrank from about 18 percent to 15 percent within the first six years, according to a recent report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

To read the full article…..Click here