Fit Kids Encourages Healthy Childhood Eating Habits

By Caroline Wilbert, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jan. 15–Beth Passehl used to be a family and marriage therapist. Now, she runs a program designed to teach overweight children and their families how to get healthy.

The first career, she says, has been good training for her current role.

As coordinator of the Fit Kids program at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Passehl has to look closely at family dynamics, habits and behaviors. For instance, a parent with one thin child and one overweight child might call Passehl and ask whether the thin child should still be allowed to eat whatever he wants.

The answer, Passehl says, is no.

“Everyone in this family needs to eat well and be healthy,” she said.

Fit Kids, founded in 1996, offers classes for overweight kids and their parents. Each six-week class has two instructors — one to exercise with the kids and one to teach the parents. More than 700 families have participated in the program, which costs $200.

Programs like Fit Kids are increasingly important as the number of overweight children in the United States continues to increase. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 16 percent of 6- to 19-year-olds are overweight, according to data gathered between 1999 and 2002. That’s triple the proportion in 1980.

QUESTION: How has the obesity issue changed since you joined Fit Kids in 1999?

ANSWER: The greatest change I have seen is there is a greater understanding or recognition of the issue on both the statewide and national levels. We realized the level of the epidemic five, six, seven years ago when we were just starting to see some of the numbers come out. Since that time, Georgia was able for the first time to … look at what the actual pediatric numbers are. We had a better idea of adults, but we didn’t really know with the children what the prevalence was. Also, the CDC has declared childhood obesity to be a public health epidemic.

Q: Do you think the childhood obesity trend in the United States can be reversed?

A: I do. … It is a trend that mimics, in some ways, the tobacco epidemic of 30 years ago. When I was a child, and it was longer than 30 years ago, but when I was 8 or 9 or 10 years old, it was never a question of whether or not I would smoke. It was a question of how old you had to be to start.

Tobacco was sold at 25 cents a pack. There were no warning labels on those packages that said it was harmful to your health, and there was no public awareness. If you ask my 11-year-old what is the best way to quit smoking, she will look at you and say, ‘Duh, just don’t start.’ That is a direct result of prevention programs and education that reversed a serious, serious health epidemic with tobacco. We are looking at very much the same kinds of measures and the same kinds of tools to look at reversing this epidemic.

Q: Do you think that junk-food advertising aimed at children, including the use of cartoon characters, is a big contributor to the problem?

A: I personally am not familiar with much research in that area. I suspect that the reason the advertising is done the way it is is because the advertisers have established that they are getting through to the children and are able to sell a product.

I have certainly had the experience, more when my children were younger, that they would tell me about various products they saw on television that they had never had before in our home. There is some impact there. … Our whole approach is that there are no bad foods out there. We advocate moderation, and we advocate that you can have any food that you want but if you let one particular food overtake your life, that is going to affect the quality of your health. The good news is that a lot of advertisers and a lot of food chains are beginning to offer healthier options.

Q: The soft drink industry made big news last year by announcing voluntary restrictions on soft drinks in schools, though sugary soft drinks still will be allowed in high schools. What are your thoughts on the new policy?

A: I was very impressed that they were willing to make those changes and be so supportive. I think they have plenty of really great products that can be offered to students in lieu of a soft drink, and I think they will find that the students will drink the water and the pure fruit juices and even the milk. If it is in a cool container, they will drink it. I think it is great that we have those options. … I am not saying that families should never, ever have soft drinks. That is not at all what we are about.

Q: What advice do you have for parents just starting out?

A: We like to say that parents have jobs around food and children have jobs. The parents’ jobs are to plan, prepare and provide healthy meals and snacks, meaning we want the parents to be in charge of what foods … they are preparing and shopping for, when they are preparing them and where those meals are held.

This would include things like eating meals at the table together with as few distractions as possible. No television, turn off the cellphone. … Keep things focused on a pleasant atmosphere. The dinner table is not the place to bring up the bad grade on the report card or the detention in school or the fight someone had. …

Children’s jobs are to choose, choose and choose. They are going to choose how much they are going to eat from the food that has been provided … and they are going to choose what they want to eat from what is out there.

So if a child comes to the table and he’s not hungry, it is OK if he doesn’t eat. If, however, the meal is over and the child then decides he is hungry, well, the deal is he has to wait until the next snack or meal. Children who graze between snacks and meals never get very hungry. They keep their hunger at bay. What happens is by the time they get to a meal or snack we have provided and they are not very hungry, they are likely not to choose the healthier options.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

A: If you can get the message out that if families and parents can just try to add on a small dose every day of physical activity, 10 or 15 minutes together, that it could make a huge difference in their child’s life. And we are really the ones who set that pace — as hard as it is. I am a working parent, I am a full-time working mom with two kids, and I get how hard that is, but they still look at us as the leaders and we are the leaders. It is a job.

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