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OWL

Step up to the plate

by Tripp Underwood on January 4, 2012

The New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center Boston Children’s Hospital recently hosted a symposium for nutritionists, medical professionals and community leaders to discuss the USDA’s current dietary guidelines and new MyPlate icon. Here’s a brief video recapping this exciting meeting of these respected and nutritionally-sound minds:

To learn more about the symposium, which featured award winning chef and famed restaurateur Jody Adams, Sam Kass, assistant White House chef and senior policy advisory for Healthy Food Initiatives at the White House, and a host of other important speakers, check out this blog chronicling the whole talk. If you’d like to learn more about childhood obesity or talk to one of our experts, please contact the obesity prevention center.

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Fighting childhood obesity: SNAP v. soda

by Tripp Underwood on September 27, 2011

In the mid 20th century, hunger was a major concern for America’s poor. To better support malnourished families living below the poverty line, the federal government created the Food Stamp Act in 1964 to help provide healthy food to people in need.

America’s nutritional landscape has changed a lot over the past 50 years. Malnourishment is still a big problem in America, but in a much different way than it was back then.

Because of their lower prices and mass availability, unhealthy foods and drinks have become a staple in the diets of millions of Americans. Obesity rates in this country have grown to epidemic levels, with impoverished communities being hit especially hard. In low-income homes across the country, overweight and obese children now outnumber underweight kids by a ratio of seven to one.

To combat this epidemic, many states are trying to change what type of items people can buy via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP-formerly know as food stamps). Because sugar-sweetened beverages have no nutritional value and have been closely linked with obesity, nine states, including Illinois, Nebraska, Texas and most recently New York, have tried to have these drinks barred from being bought with SNAP money. In each case the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has said no. Full story »

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Sugar and vice

by Andrea Mooney on September 26, 2011

Despite it being an ingredient that no one needs on a daily basis, sugar plays a starring role in many of our diets. The American Heart Association suggest that kids eat no more than three teaspoons (12 grams) of sugar a day, but Sara Yen, registered dietitian at Children’s Hospital Boston’s Martha Eliot Health Center, says most kids are probably exceeding that. And with the many sugar variations and substitutes, there seems to be confusion about what sugar and its spinoffs really are, and what they mean for our bodies.

Yen demystifies the situation without sugarcoating it.

“The reason we tell patients to avoid sugar is because it provides calories and refined carbohydrates, but not much else,” she says. “It’s what we call empty calories: You take them in, but in terms of fiber, vitamins and minerals, it’s not beneficial.” Full story »

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Apples vs. Oz

by Tripp Underwood on September 16, 2011

In many cases jucies aren't much of a healthier alternative to soda

By now you’ve probably heard about Dr. Oz’s war against apple juice. The doctor/TV personality recently made claims that many brands of apple juice contain too much arsenic, a known cancer-causing agent found in many pesticides.

The Food and Drug Administration was quick to respond to Oz’s study, saying that any trace levels of arsenic found in apple juice sold in the US was perfectly safe, and statements to the contrary were “irresponsible and misleading.”

Inflammatory or not, Oz’s attack on apple juice seems to have gotten the public’s attention. But as many people consider the hidden ingredients in their kids’ favorite drink, they seem to be ignoring a far more obvious problem with many popular juices: Large amounts of sugar. Full story »

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Food for thought: The war against childhood obesity

by Tripp Underwood on August 10, 2011

Daivd Ludwig, MD, PhD

For David Ludwig, MD, PhD, one of health’s most fundamental truths can be traced back to a 2,000-year-old quote from Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine: “Let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food.”

It’s a simple but powerful philosophy, and when combined with current research in obesity prevention, it’s one of the cornerstones of Children’s Hospital Boston’s Optimal Weight for Life (OWL) Clinic. “Hippocrates was right, nutrition really is the foundation for health and well-being,” says Ludwig. “He understood that intuitively, without access to the modern science and technology.”

Founded by Ludwig in 1996, OWL is a multidisciplinary clinic with a staff that includes physicians, nurses, dietitians and experts in child behavior. With Ludwig at the helm, OWL has spent the past decade and a half researching childhood obesity while serving over 1,500 patients a year, making it one of the largest and most respected childhood obesity clinics in America. Now, thanks to a $7 million grant provided by the New Balance Foundation, Ludwig and his team will be able to expand their clinical research, patient care and community health programs. The newly created New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center will bring Ludwig’s message to even more children and communities struggling with weight issues.

Since he was 8 years old, Ludwig has been captivated by the inner workings of the human body. By the time he finished the fourth grade he had read every physiology book on the shelves of his local library.

That fascination stayed with him throughout his education. When he began his pediatric endocrinology fellowship at Children’s, he focused his studies on diet and weight, researching how brain function affects body size, as well as the role genetics plays in why some people become obese and others do not.

But with childhood obesity already reaching epidemic status by the mid-1990s, Ludwig felt a more preventive approach was needed to remedy the mounting health problems that overweight children would face in the future.

“Our genes, though important, haven’t caused the epidemic—so we need to look to the environment for the answers,” he says. Full story »

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Should the state intervene on behalf of morbidly obese children?

by Tripp Underwood on July 13, 2011

When we think of child abuse and neglect, we think of burns and bruises and children left unattended. We don’t think of obesity. But maybe, in some cases, we should.

In a recent commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), David Ludwig, MD, PhD, director of the Optimal Weight for Life (OWL) Program at Children’s Hospital Boston, argues that life-threatening obesity—where a child’s body mass index (BMI) is beyond the 99 percentile and multiple attempts to help the child lose weight have failed—could call for state intervention, and in extreme cases foster care.

Children in this highest BMI category are at great risk for many serious health complications. We all know that childhood obesity can lead to life-long health complications, but in extreme cases it can be life-threatening in the short term. For example, type 2 diabetes, which is being seen in younger and younger patients as the childhood obesity epidemic continues, can cause very serious complications and even be fatal. Sleep apnea, which often occurs in obese children, can lead to very dangerous heart problems.

Because of these dangers Ludwig says the most severe instances of childhood obesity may justify a child’s removal from the home because of imminent health risks to the child and the parents’ continued failure to address those problems. Full story »

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Parade.com talks healthy eating

by Tripp Underwood on April 11, 2011

It’s no secret that most kids aren’t exactly crazy about healthy eating. Many growing taste buds prefer pizza to carrots, leaving plenty of parents and educators at a loss for how to get the children in their lives to eat better. From hip marketing campaigns to health food product placement— not too mention good, old-fashioned trickery— there are plenty of way to try to get kids to eat right, but there isn’t a sure fire method that’s proven to work.

To help parents in their quest for healthier kids, David Ludwig, MD, PhD, director of Children’s Hospital Boston’s Optimal Weight for Life program, recently spoke with Parade magazine, offering practical advice on ways parents can drive home the importance of a well balanced diet. Here’s an excerpt:

“Young children are like ducks: They do what their parents do,” says Harvard endocrinologist Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital Boston. If you eat junk food instead of fruits and vegetables, they will too.”

A University of Tennessee study reports that mothers usually refrain from offering babies foods they themselves dislike—so if you hate fava beans, chances are that your child has never tried them. Still, says Dr. Ludwig, it’s never too late to become a good role model. Explain to children that real foods—like fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, beans, fish and meat—come from nature. Dr. Ludwig recommends that obese children keep food diaries, recording all of the sugary drinks and factory-processed junk foods they eat in a day. They’ll be astonished at how many they consume. Kids may moan, but they’ll get hungry and learn to replace cheese puffs with low-fat cheese.

For great advice on other ways parents can make healthy eating easier, check out the entire article here.

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Health headlines: Sports injuries, lazy ear and lice

by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on March 13, 2010

Sports injury Other stories we’ve been reading:

Be sure to keep liquid detergent capsules out of your kids’ reach. Scientists find out why Vitamin D is important. [Read how children are at risk of a Vitamin D deficiency.]There’s a jump in kids’ sports injuries due to overuse. [Read about how girls' soccer injuries are preventable.]

Twenty percent of U.S. babies don’t get the hepatitis B vaccine. A Canadian vaccine study proves the idea of “herd community.” [Read about this year's vaccine schedule.] A new drug could help protect against treatment-resistant lice.

Parents can help prevent bullying by modeling kindness and empathy. [Find out how to address bullying.] Girls start bullying at a younger age.

Special needs kids are often uninsured. Can a behavioral optometrist help kids with “issues?”

A consumer groups gives food advertisers an “F” on kids. Taxing soda and pizza could help consumers lose five pounds a year. Schools are serving less sugary drinks. [Read about artificially sweetened beverages.]

A stomach bug can raise a child’s risk of having irritable bowel syndrome. Temporary hearing impairment leads to lazy ear.

Peanut allergies are linked to worse asthma in kids. A family finds success using a pediatric obesity program.

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