Local programs offer incentive for healthy living

Prevention of heart disease begins young, experts say, encouraging parents to instill proven nutrition and exercise lifestyles from infancy.

But with childhood obesity rates tripling in the past 30 years, many worry that Americans are losing the battle.

“This is the first generation of Americans that will not live as long as the generation before,” said Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, a pediatrician with Conemaugh Physicians Group of Johnstown.

Rosenberg urges parents to be proactive by creating a healthy environment in their homes and getting the whole family involved.

Fellow pediatrician Dr. Matthew Masiello, chief wellness officer at Windber Research Institute, takes the advice a step further. Healthy patients begin with healthy doctors, Masiello said.

“You have to get yourself fit,” Masiello said. “Then you are able to help your patients. As physicians, we have to start taking care of ourselves.”

The strategy has been proven by the decrease in tobacco use. As more doctors quit smoking, Masiello said, they were able to help more of their patients find strategies to quit. As government policies and businesses continued to limit opportunities to smoke, tobacco use has declined even more.

“It comes down to education and policy,” Masiello said.

For parents, education should begin even before the baby is born, he said.

“When I was training, breastfeeding was an issue we talked about in terms of the antibodies and the extra vitamins and minerals that came from the mother,” Masiello said.

“We now know that breastfeeding is much more than that. Those kids are going to have better weight control when they get older. It is going to have a positive effect throughout their lives.”

Part of the benefit, doctors believe, comes from getting mothers thinking about nutrition and wellness early.

“Parents are more cognizant of weight issues,” Masiello said. “When parents absorb the educational aspects of breastfeeding, there is a connection with good nutrition later in life.”

Health education for parents is vital to any program addressing childhood wellness and disease prevention, Rosenberg said, recalling earlier attempts to stem the obesity epidemic. When leaders first recognized the rise in the obesity rate, he said, hundreds of different programs were introduced addressing the issue at various levels, such as psychology, nutrition, medicine and education.

“They were all uniformly unsuccessful,” Rosenberg said. “Then a study by the University of Washington showed you have to have the whole family buy into a program. It is pivotal for success.”

Several local health-care organizations are offering evidence-based programs based on findings such as the Washington study.

Memorial Medical Center is bringing the Edwards LifeSciences spring wellness events back to four locations in Cambria and Somerset counties, with outreach to more than 30 schools.

Families will be invited to come together to the one-day events, coordinator Michelle George said.

The programs will provide health screenings and information to parents while children participate in a fun, healthy activity.

“We try to encourage healthy behavior through physical activity, even among those who don’t normally play basketball or football,” George said.

A schedule for the spring wellness events will be announced soon, she said.

Somerset Hospital has been conducting KidShape programs for several years in Somerset County, with funding from the Highmark Foundation. Windber Research Institute is reintroducing KidShape for Cambria County families.

The Windber program is being held at Greater Johnstown YMCA, with support from the YMCA and Alternative Community Resource Program.

KidShape targets children in the 85th percentile and above on body mass index screenings conducted at all schools, Masiello said.

“That is the public health approach: To gather all these players together to bring these programs into focus.”

Parents attend two-hour sessions each week for nine weeks with their children, meeting with nutrition, exercise, and mental-health professionals during every session. Participants move through seven different stations addressing all aspects of weight loss and healthy lifestyle, exercise physiologist and program coordinator Mike Seibert said from Somerset Hospital.

“Parents learn as the kids learn,” Seibert said. “They tell us, ‘we want to do better; we just don’t know how.’ ”

Working together with other families is an important part of the KidShape mission, fitness director Debbi Smith said at the YMCA

“This just a starting point for these kids who are changing their lives,” Smith said. “We get the kids into the environment where they are surrounded by like-minded individuals, trying to make themselves healthy and to have fun.”

Parents learn how to take better care of themselves and create healthier homes, Seibert said.

“What I am asking the families to do is take the lead again,” Seibert said.

“Take an active role in their kids’ health. The kids are counting on the parents to be the food cookers and shoppers.”

Program director Vicki Clark said KidShape fits well into the YMCA’s new national focus: “For Youth Development; For Healthy Living; For Social Responsibility.”

“KidShape hits all those components for us,” Clark said.

Facilitators check in with families after three months, then six months and then a year after the final session.

“If the families are held accountable, and they are working together, it works,” Seibert said.

“We are hoping that we connect with these kids so when they are in the grocery store, they start looking at what is on the labels. Instead of sitting around watching TV, we encourage them to go outside.”

Enrollment information

• KidShape, Somerset County.

Mike Seibert at 445-3330.

• KidShape, Cambria County.

Windber Research Institute KidShape line 361-6966.

• Memorial Medical Center, Edwards LifeSciences screenings.

(866) 839-3867.

Consumer advice

Here are some shopping and nutrition tips from Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, a pediatrician with Conemaugh Physicians Group of Johnstown:

• Shop on a full stomach, with a list and not with children.

• Everybody older than 2 should drink skim milk.

• Start meals with salads or light soup, lingering with 15 minutes of conversation at the dinner table.

• Serve all meals on salad plates, with salad forks.

• Get rid of frying.

• Limit protein to a serving the size of your palm, and cook only one serving for each person. The rest is vegetables you will eat if you are hungry.

• Snack on fresh-cut carrots or other vegetables in front of the television.

• Mix children’s sugary cereal with more healthy cereal, gradually reducing the sugar content until it’s gone.

**This article was published in the Tribune Democrat on 2/25/12

http://tribune-democrat.com/local/x1875167287/Local-programs-offer-incentive-for-healthy-living