Lynchburg Living

Body

By Heather King

It’s no secret–more and more kids these days are struggling with obesity. In fact, the 2007-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) of the CDC states that “…an estimated 17 percent of children and adolescents ages 2-19 years are obese.”

It is true that in today’s fast-paced world, it’s sometimes easier for busy parents to take their kids to McDonald’s for dinner instead of cooking at home. But food choice isn’t the only contributing factor to childhood weight issues.

According to a January 2010 study released by the Kaiser Family Foundation, “Today, 8- to 18-year-olds devote an average of seven hours and 38 minutes to using entertainment media across a typical day. And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking,’ they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into those 7.5 hours.”

Kids aren’t as active as they used to be. But it’s impossible for children to make healthy lifestyle changes without the inclusion and support of their parents. This is what Mary Bice, an R.N. and licensed and certified Shapedown provider, teaches families when they sign up for the Shapedown program, a family centered weight management program for children and teens that is run out of Centra’s Healthy Living Center in the Jamerson YMCA. Shapedown is a 10-week lifestyle health program that teaches children and parents how to make better choices for their health and maintain those changes over their lifetimes.

“I looked into a lot of programs back in 2003 when I was starting to do this program and all the programs were just [about] the children,” Bice said. “This is the only one that I found that the parents were involved. I could bring these kids in and change them, but then I send them right back into the unhealthy environment. [The parents] have got to change too. And it makes the kid feel better that their parents are working on this program with them.”

Bice is passionate about Shapedown and the service it provides to children, teenagers and their parents. Upon meeting her and seeing her smile as she talks about the program, you will know that she loves what she does and cares deeply for every family she works with.

“We don’t like diets. We try to teach families little baby changes to make in their lifestyle, and it lasts for a lifetime,” she explained.

When families start Shapedown, they’re given workbooks that will teach them how to make healthy choices. The child gets a workbook, and the parents get a workbook. There’s a chart in every chapter where family time is monitored, as well as the amount of television watched and exercise had. The goal is to gradually get kids down to an hour of television a day and up to exercising an hour a day. The key word here is “gradual.”

Bice also teaches kids the Hunger Scale, so they’ll know to eat when they’re hungry instead of waiting until they’re starving, because if they wait until they feel like they’re starving, they’ll eat too fast and too much. The Hunger Scale teaches kids and parents how to prevent overeating. It also teaches ways to prevent boredom eating, something many kids and adults do.

“I teach them methods like delaying or wait 10 minutes, then they’re usually not hungry. It takes 20 minutes for the message that there’s food in your stomach to go to the brain. If you eat too fast, you’re going to eat too much,” Bice said.

Another tool in the Shapedown arsenal is the Food Summary, which classifies foods as free, light, heavy or junk. This classification assists Bice’s clients in making good food choices. For example, vegetables are considered free foods, while fruits and white meats (white chicken, fish, pork) are considered light foods. Free foods are sugar-free and fat-free, so kids can eat as much of them as they want. Red meats, biscuits and macaroni with cheese are examples of heavy foods, while junk foods are foods that don’t have any nutritional value.

Over her years of running the Shapedown program, Bice has seen incredible transformations in the children and teens she has worked with. She once worked with a shy pre-teen who experienced separation anxiety, low self-esteem and didn’t enjoy exercise. Completing the Shapedown program produced night and day results in the pre-teen. She went from shy to confident, from hating exercise to a fit body.

The Shapedown program isn’t simply a program that teaches families the importance of spending time together, how to make good food choices and the value of staying active; at its core, the program teaches kids how to feel good about themselves. When a child is making good decisions that lead to better health and a fit body, it’s impossible for them not to feel more positive.

To learn more about the Shapedown program, contact Mary Bice at (434) 237-8163 or visit www.centrahealth.com/shapedown-weight-mgmt.