Fighting childhood obesity a community effort

A one-size-fits-all approach will do little to reshape the health habits of a growing number of children who are overweight or at risk for obesity, a National Institutes of Health expert said Friday.

Speaking at the Pediatric Healthy Weight Summit at the East Carolina Hearth Institute, psychologist Laura Koehly addressed the social context of childhood obesity.

Koehly, an investigator with the social and behavioral research branch of NIH’s National Humane Genome Research Institute, talked to those attending the seventh annual summit about the importance of involving families, schools and entire communities in the fight against childhood obesity.

“Obesity is one of the most pressing health problems in the United States as well in as other developing countries,” Koehly said. “If our goal is to change behavior and affect health outcomes, then network-based strategies may be particularly effective.”

The summit, sponsored by the ECU’s Pediatric Healthy Weight Research and Treatment Center, invited medical practitioners and other professionals to share intervention methods to combat childhood obesity, which is reported to affect as many as one in three children in America.

Such statistics have recently propelled the issue of childhood obesity into the national spotlight. Last month, first lady Michelle Obama unveiled “Let’s Move,” a national public-awareness campaign centered, in part, on encouraging children to exercise and their parents to make better food choices.

Koehly said obesity prevention efforts that focus on the home can be effective, especially in early childhood. She cited statistics that indicate that in a home where both parents are overweight, a child’s chances of developing obesity are 80 percent, compared with 7 percent if neither parent is overweight.

“Because kids model their parents’ behaviors,” Koehly said, “parents (should) encourage healthful behaviors in their children.”

Beyond parental influence, Koehly said, other adult role models and peers also have an influence on a child’s weight. Recent studies involving high school students in California and Australia showed that friends tend to have similar levels of physical activity.

Koehly said peer influence also has been shown to extend to screen time, high-calorie food consumption and even to weight itself.

Dr. David Collier sees both sides of these influences in his patients. As director of the Pediatric Healthy Weight Research and Treatment Center, established by the Brody School of Medicine’s pediatrics department in 2003, Collier sees children of morbidly obese parents come to the center as much as 300 pounds overweight. He also has seen such children lose weight through interventions like Take Off 4-Health, which is designed to help children learn to lead a healthy lifestyle.

Collier spoke at Friday’s summit about the three-week residential summer camp, held in conjunction with North Carolina 4-H and N.C. Cooperative Extension. Koehly believes such partnerships can serve to address childhood obesity far better than efforts with a narrower focus.