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Episode #1905
Helping
Overweight Kids
Brown: Natalie Bullock Brown,
host
Rowe: Natalie Rowe, overweight teen
Jarman: Karen Jarman, WIC nutritionist, Wake County
Michener: Dr. Lloyd Michener, Duke University Medical Center
Griffin: Dr. Christopher Griffin, M.D., Goldsboro Pediatrics
Gallant: Robin Gallant, Family Counseling Services
Colburn: Christopher Colburn, formerly overweight teen
Brown:
There’s
a serious health problem developing in North Carolina, and
it’s affecting our state’s children, black children
in particular. The problem is called childhood obesity, and
we’ll examine its causes, effects, and cures tonight
on Black Issues Forum.
Voiceover:
This program was made possible by contributions to UNC-TV
from viewers like you. Thank you.
[THEME
MUSIC]
Brown:
Good evening and welcome to Black Issues Forum. I’m
Natalie Bullock Brown. Nationally, one out of five children
are overweight in the African-American and Hispanic communities,
and in North Carolina, according to state statistics, nearly
60% of children from all races aged two through 18 are overweight.
Research also indicates if overweight children become overweight
teenagers, they are more likely to become overweight adults.
These statistics are of particular concern for African-Americans,
since national statistics indicate that 30% of black adults
are not just overweight, but obese. Tonight we’ll talk
with our panel of guests about why North Carolina’s
kids are increasingly overweight and what can be done about
it. Information in our program is for informational purposes
and is not intended for use as diagnosis or treatment of a
health problem or as a substitute for consulting a licensed
health care professional for medical advice, instruction,
diagnosis or treatment. If you have specific questions or
concerns, please consult your physician or appropriate licensed
health care professional. Before we begin our discussion,
here’s some information about what’s being done
in Wake County and statewide to help children dealing with
overweight. In North Carolina and across the country, children
are gaining weight, and statistics indicate the weight gain
is nearing epidemic proportions. In fact, according to national
data, the percentage of children who are overweight in the
United States doubled during the past two decades and the
percentage among adolescents tripled. In North Carolina, one
out of every four teens is overweight, and Natalie Rowe is
one of them.
[VIDEO
CLIP]
F:
Anything to drink with those chips?
Rowe:
Orange juice.
Brown:
When asked how she became overweight, Natalie says the
answer is simple.
Rowe:
Eating more junk food and basically not taking care of
myself.
Brown:
Natalie says at her heaviest she weighed 353 pounds. But
thanks to regular visits with a Wake County nutritionist,
Natalie is well on her way to not only losing weight, but
developing a healthier lifestyle.
Rowe:
We talk about what I ate the past weeks and what exercises
I’ve been doing, how long I’ve been doing them.
Brown:
Natalie says she recently lost 27 pounds.
Rowe:
It took me about two-and-a-half months, and I walked a
lot, did exercise like I’m supposed to and just ate
right.
Brown:
Nutritionists, like the one Natalie works with, say that
eating right has to start early with children to ward off
excessive weight gain later on. Karen Jarman is a nutritionist
with the Wake County Human Services’ Women, Infants,
and Children—or WIC—program, and she says that
early habits of healthy eating go hand-in-hand with early
habits of exercise.
Jarman:
If children aren’t really active, if they’re not
playing hard, they’re not using those calories; they’re
not developing muscles and developing skills for running,
balance.
Brown:
Jarman adds that what parents do to stay healthy, especially
what mothers do, has a big impact on their kids.
Jarman:
Oh yes, of course, because the children really learn by
watching. And the old adage “Do what I say, not what
I do”—it’s totally the opposite of that.
Brown:
State statistics indicate that, at least in some groups,
mothers are setting a bad example. In fact, experts say that
66% of African-American mothers and 68% of Hispanic mothers
are overweight, which is cause for great concern for Dr. Lloyd
Michener, chair of Duke University’s Department of Community
and Family Medicine. But he says there is hope.
Michener:
North Carolina is fortunate to have two large programs
aimed at reducing chronic disease in North Carolina, especially
focused on improving diet, improving exercise, and, in one
of them, also reducing smoking. Those are the three factors
that lead to a lot of chronic disease, especially in this
state. The first and the largest and oldest is the Project
SELF Improvement, which has been funded by the Kate B. Reynolds
Charitable Trust. That project, in turn, led to discussions
with the Health and Wellness Trust Fund of North Carolina
about what could be done to reduce the increasing problems
with childhood obesity in North Carolina, which is really
a problem.
Brown:
Dr. Michener says 15 to 20 programs proposed by organizations
and communities across the state will be awarded a share of
the $9 million Health and Wellness Trust Fund. And with those
resources, Michener says, people will be able to make a difference
in the state’s obesity problem.
Michener:
So, folks who tell us that they can organize a walking
club in their community—if they think they can, then
they can, and folks will turn out and they’ll join with
their neighbors in walking in that community. Governments
can help too. Schools. And when you get the citizens in a
community hooked up with their local representatives and you
can build walking trails, you can put exercise programs in
schools, you can find things other than highly-sugared drinks
in the schools, those programs can really make a difference
and can get the kids and the citizens in those communities
involved and can help people lose weight and be healthier.
Brown:
Here to help us understand what North Carolinians can
do to help kids lose weight and develop healthier lifestyles
are our guests. First, Dr. Christopher Griffin, a pediatrician
with Goldsboro Pediatrics in Goldsboro, who’s been involved
with various programs designed to specifically address excessive
weight gain in children. Christopher Colburn, a 17-year-old
who started gaining weight in high school, but lost 60 pounds
through diet and exercise. And Robin Gallant, a master’s
level social worker and provisionally-licensed clinical social
worker who works with family counseling services and looked
at psychosocial issues concerning overweight and obesity.
Welcome to all of you to Black Issues Forum.
Griffin:
Thank you.
Brown:
Now, let me start off with Robin and Dr. Griffin. In the
communities you work in, what would you say are the top factors
that have and continue to contribute to overweight in kids
in North Carolina. Robin, why don’t you start?
Gallant:
Okay. I think lack of physical activity and unhealthy
food choices.
Brown:
And what about you, Dr. Griffin?
Griffin:
I would agree with both of those. I think, when it comes
to exercise, a lot of our kids today are not getting as much
exercise as they have gotten in the past. Going outside and
riding a bike or playing football or basketball has been replaced
by playing video games and watching TV, and our parents are
no longer encouraging kids to go out into the community and
play a little bit more. Similarly, in our schools system,
whereas PE used to be more of a required course, it’s
now more of an elective and, in some places, not even offered
every day. And when you have that lack of exercise, along
with the poor eating habits that we’ve developed over
the past years, we’ve seen that problem increase. So
I don’t think it’s necessarily limited to either
one of our communities; I think it’s more of a national
health problem.
Gallant:
I agree.
Brown:
Chris, tell us, what was your situation? How did you start
gaining the weight that you did in high school?
Colburn:
Well, I was always a little overweight—not too much,
but with high school… When I was in middle school, I
played soccer, basketball. In high school I just played basketball,
and then my sophomore year I didn’t play any sports,
and I’d just gotten my license, and when me and my friends
would hang out, we’d go hang out and we’d get
something to eat. And so I wasn’t doing any activities;
I was just eating junk food all the time and watching TV.
Brown:
And what did you do to lose the weight? 60 pounds is an
amazing accomplishment, and I understand you began losing
your weight in May of this year.
Colburn:
Yeah. Well, my mom had started working out with Wade at
Phase II, and she asked me if I wanted to go. And I knew I
needed to lose weight; I just didn’t like hearing it
from my mom, or anyone being like, “You need to lose
weight.” So I said, “I’ll go,” and
I started working out with someone that works for Wade who’s
younger. And we lifted weights and stuff and we weighed me
once, and he said, “Your body fat percentage is way
up. Your weight is way up. We just need to get that down.”
And that’s really the only time we actually talked about
me being overweight. He gave me some note cards and said,
“Write down what you eat. Don’t change what you
eat, just write it down.” And we started working out
just two times a week until midway through June where summer
started and we started a diet where I did 2,000 calories during
the weekdays and 3,000 on the weekends. And also I had a full-time
job at a Kerr Drug warehouse, so I was working from 6:30 to
3:30, getting home at 4:00, and then working out from 5:00
to 6:00, so I didn’t have time to just sit around and
eat like I’d been doing during the school year. And
I think if I wasn’t working—if I was just at home
the whole summer—that I wouldn’t have been able
to lose that much, because when you’re bored it’s
easier to go, “Let me get some popcorn with my movie”
than when you’re working. I mean, you don’t have
time to sit down and eat all the time.
Brown:
Thanks for sharing that, first of all, Chris. Robin, since
you deal with what you term “psychosocial issues”
related to excessive weight gain in kids, is any of what Chris
is talking about—what he experienced, especially what
he said about not wanting to hear that he was overweight from
his mom—is that what you’re talking about when
you say “psychosocial”?
Gallant:
Well, that’s definitely part of it. We know that
sometimes with kids you don’t want to talk too much
with them about this issue. You know, usually kids know what’s
going on for them, and sometimes having a parent focus too
much on the issue is actually detrimental. Sometimes hearing
it from an outsider is really an important thing. So that
is one thing that I sometimes talk to families about. The
other things that we know from working with folks and from
the research that Chris touched on is that a lot of times
people eat out of things like boredom, which is a psychosocial
skill. So if you’re bored, okay, what are you going
to do instead? Not everybody’s old enough to have a
job. You were, which is awesome, and you also made the choice
to do that, which is awesome. But what else can other kids
do who can’t? So those are some psychosocial skills.
And also, not focusing too much on diet. We know that that’s
not as healthy for youth as it is to make healthier choices
and be physically active.
Brown:
Dr. Griffin, in your practice, how would you deal with
a situation where you have a kid like Chris who’s in
high school, or even a kid younger who is dealing with some
of the issues that he spoke about?
Griffin:
Well, initially, what we try to do is address it in an
office setting, but one of the problems that we did find is—with
the increasing epidemic of obesity—that we were unable
to address it fully within an office visit or office setting.
So what we were able to do in our community is establish a
program called the “Change for Children” program,
and we did this in conjunction with our local Goldsboro YMCA.
And what we came up with was a plan where we would have children
and their families come in three times a week to the Y, and
we focus on exercise, nutrition, and also looking at medical
causes of obesity. And what the children would do is they
would work out three times a week for an hour at the YMCA,
and while they were doing that we had a dietician from our
local health department who would educate the parents on proper
nutrition—what type of foods to choose, how to kind
of cut back on calories, and choices to make even when you
go out to fast food. What are some of the better fast foods
that you can eat when you don’t feel like cooking that
evening?
Brown:
Right. Well, what kinds of foods—and I’m going
to want you, Robin, to jump in here at some point and address
the same question—but what kinds of foods would you
tell parents are better choices for them to feed to their
kids, and even for them to eat themselves?
Griffin:
Well, obviously, we always encourage fresh fruits and
vegetables. Those should be a staple of your diet. And we
all hear about the five servings a day, but sometimes it’s
hard to get those in, but we focus on that. We also focus
on choosing foods like baked foods or grilled foods, as opposed
to fried foods. We all like to get our hamburgers and french
fries, but there are fast food alternatives out there where
you can get a grilled sandwich or choose a sandwich without
cheese. We also try to help parents go out and look at the
groceries that they buy and look at the back of the box and
see how many calories or how many carbohydrates or fats are
in a particular food, and that’s where we really focus—just
changing the dynamic of the family, in terms of what you eat
and how to choose what you eat.
Brown:
Robin, in your service that you provide—your counseling—what
do you tell families?
Gallant:
Well, in the program that we’re doing, we actually
have a nutritionist who talks to families—it’s
very similar to the program that Chris does—who talks
to the families about the food. From a psychosocial perspective,
what I tell families about the food is that it’s the
parents’ job to provide the food environment and to
bring the healthy foods into the family, and it’s the
child’s job to decide and make the choices. Also, from
a psychosocial perspective, you don’t want to tell a
child—or really, I don’t think, anybody—that
“You can never have that.” I mean, if you think
about that, if you’re five years old and you can never,
ever, ever have this, that’s really hard to hear and
scary and not necessarily the most healthful. You know, you
can have it, but let’s just have it less often and let’s
make healthier choices more often. I also tell parents around
the food, “You don’t want to be the Food Police.
If you become the Food Police, then you’re creating
a dynamic where your child may rebel against you.” You
know, if you hear “No, no, no,” too much, a lot
of times as human beings we’re like, “Oh,yeah.”
Right? And you don’t want to create that dynamic in
the family, because that actually really hurts the family
in the long run.
Brown:
Now, Robin, I know that you have had some experience with
also dealing with losing weight and trying to maintain a healthy
lifestyle. Would you just share a little bit of your experience
with that.
Gallant:
Sure. Well, personally, I’m maintaining over a hundred-pound,
closer to a two hundred-pound weight loss. And I made those
changes through lifestyle changes, through working out more
often and through dealing with the psychosocial issues that
were there for me to deal with.
Brown:
And Chris, you were talking about how when you hung out
with your friends you often went to places to get something
to eat. And Robin was saying that parents are supposed to
set, sort of, the tone—the food tone, I guess—in
the household. Tell me what sort of things were your parents
feeding, or putting on the table for you, and were you eating
it?
Colburn:
Well, my mom was always trying to buy the healthy stuff
and say, “No, you can’t have that,” and
it really just got on my nerves. And when I went over to my
friends’ house, I mean, I had the bad stuff. All she
would buy is diet soda, but I always had soda when I went
over to my neighbor’s house. So it just more or less
got on my nerves. So once I got my license, she could tell
me “Don’t have that,” but I had money; I
was going out with my friends. So it was really, like, there
was nothing she could do. She could tell me, but she couldn’t
make me, so it was a choice I had to make not to eat this
stuff. And since I had my license, when I started the diet
I went to the grocery store, found stuff that I liked that
I could eat that wasn’t bad so I could have it. So it
was really—at my age I had to make the choice. My mom
could buy the right food, but if I didn’t want to eat
it, I wasn’t going to eat it.
Brown:
Well, you were talking about your experience with Wade
Harris at Phase II and how he didn’t even ask you to
change what you ate—at least not initially. So how did
you begin to change and educate yourself in order to make
better decisions?
Colburn:
I actually worked with one of Wade’s assistants,
Alex, but the first month, he really just wanted to see what
I ate so he could more determine what I was eating wrongly.
So I didn’t really change at all for the first month;
I just worked out, got used to working out, going there after
school instead of just going home and watching TV. And then
he was just, like, “This is the diet.” And after
I started working out I lost some weight. I saw the goal that
I wanted to get, and it was a lot easier for me to start the
diet because I knew that I’d lost weight already working
out and how much more I’d lose once I started eating
the correct things.
Brown:
Great. Well, congratulations to you for losing so much
weight.
Colburn:
Thank you.
Brown:
Dr. Griffin, how often is a medical condition the culprit,
in terms of excessive weight gain in children?
Griffin:
Well, we see medical conditions, but we find that most
of the time it’s not involved in a large amount. One
of the biggest medical conditions we see associated with that
is hyperthyroidism, and that’s a problem with your thyroid
where it’s not quite working as well, and when your
thyroid doesn’t produce that substance enough that it
needs to, it leads to you having weight gain. And that’s
one of the biggest things that we’ve found. Other diseases
that you can see associated with obesity is type II diabetes,
which is also becoming a big problem with some of our obese
adolescents. And this used to be a disease that was mainly
associated with adults—the type II—and we would
see type I diabetes associated with children. But because
of this epidemic of obesity, we’re seeing a lot of our
kids now—12, 13, 16 years old—who come in with
the type II type of diabetes.
Brown:
How does class and socioeconomics play a role in how well
people are able to feed themselves, feed their children, and
then the resulting potential weight gain?
Griffin:
I think it plays a big role. I think some who live in
poor communities—one of the big problems that they have
is just lack of knowledge. They don’t get as much information
or don’t know how to get the information, in terms of
what are the proper choices to make about foods and what type
of choices do you make in a grocery store. Also, when you’re
on a limited budget, the foods that you can buy—it’s
great to say, “Well, I’m going to eat these fat-free
bars,” but if they’re $5 and you have a child
at home and the pop tarts on this side are $2, then that’s
the choice they’re going to make. One of the things
we did was we went into a grocery store and just looked at
the prices, where if you’re talking about buying, for
example, fat-free chicken breasts, that’s much more
expensive than just the regular chicken that you get. And
so, if you have limited finances, that limits what you can
buy and make those choices. In the community, if you live
in some of the poor neighborhoods, you find that there may
not be places for kids to go out and play. The parks may not
be as nice as some of the parks in other neighborhoods. The
area may be dangerous, where you can’t just allow your
kid to go out and play. And so when you have a child who has
nowhere to play or it’s not safe for that child to go
out and play without adult supervision, those kids end up
staying inside, and when you stay inside that’s when
you get into the habit of watching television, or just playing
your video game. And so the socioeconomic aspect really affects
the way and the rate that obesity is growing today.
Brown:
Robin, in your practice, what sort of unique challenges—besides,
I’m sure, some of the things that Dr. Griffin has said—do
you find with your African-American clients?
Gallant:
Well, some of the things that I find with my African-American
clients are also similar to what I see in lots of young folks
who are dealing with these issues. A lot of times young folks
are teased because they’re overweight, and that really
affects many kids very deeply and profoundly. A lot of the
kids that I work with don’t feel that great about themselves.
They have low self-esteem, and that’s something that
needs to be developed and worked on. And they’re really
hard on themselves sometimes, and other people have been really
hard on them, so they deal with a lot of teasing and stigmatization.
Brown:
And what do you say to help them get through that?
Gallant:
Well, I say different things to different kids, because
different things work better with different people. Some of
the things that I tell them are: One, don’t listen to
it. Two, a lot of people are teased, and it’s not just
them. They’re not in it alone. And a lot of times, the
thing that is most helpful for young folks around this is
to talk with other young folks about it. Once they get into
a group of kids where other kids are dealing with the same
issues, they’re better able to talk about it. And the
way I work with young folks and people in general is to help
them find the solutions within them. A lot of times the kids
know what the right thing is for them to say; they just need
some help getting it out.
Brown:
Well, Chris, I’m going to give you the last word,
and—as our resident young person on this panel—what
would you say to kids watching to help them to lose weight,
or even to their parents, to just help in the process of losing
weight?
Colburn:
I really think your parents can only help so much. You
really have to want to lose weight. And it is easier if you
have someone that you can go work out with or run with or
that holds you accountable, because it’s a lot easier
after school to just go home and watch TV than it is to go
running or to go play. So, especially with younger kids, I
think if parents bought more healthy foods—my mom tried
with me—I mean, sometimes I just got annoyed with it,
but when you’re younger there’s not much you can
do but go over to your friend’s house, and you can’t
be over there all the time. But I really think that if you
can find someone that will run with you, even your parent,
but they don’t really need to be criticizing you all
the time—that’s the biggest thing. Parents are
like, “You need to eat this. You need to do this.”
It really gets on your nerves and just makes you want to do
it less.
Brown:
Well, I’d like to thank Dr. Christopher Griffin, Chris
Colburn, and Robin Gallant for talking with us about this
urgent topic. Information in our program is for informational
purposes and is not intended for use as diagnosis or treatment
of a health problem or as a substitute for consulting a licensed
health care professional for medical advice, instruction,
diagnosis or treatment. If you have specific questions or
concerns, please consult your physician or appropriate licensed
health care professional. If you’d like to learn more
about childhood obesity and what can be done to control it,
or about the work of our guests, please visit the Black
Issues Forum website at www.unctv.org/bif. We would also like to hear
your feedback and suggestions, so send us an e-mail or call
us at 919-549-7167. Tonight’s show is the second in
a series of three that we’ll be bringing to you as part
of UNC-TV’s health initiative. So be sure to join Black
Issues Forum each Friday night at 9:30. I’m Natalie
Bullock Brown reminding you to be encouraged, no matter what.
Good night.
[THEME
MUSIC]
Voiceover:
This program was made possible by contributions to UNC-TV
from viewers like you. Thank you.
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