Obesity is a major national health problem that spans ages and races. Obesity not only has devastating physical complications, but the emotional damage that can be caused by being obese is even worse. People who are obese during their teen years are subject to terrible ridicule that can lead to depression and other related psychosomatic diseases. What many don’t realize is that obesity starts before a child’s teenage years.

Child and Adolescent Trial for Cardiovascular Health (CATCH) was created as a research project in the late 1980s and early 1990s by research teams from four different universities. The purpose of the research is to develop an elementary school-based program to reduce the risk factors related to cardiovascular disease. CATCH is funded by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. The CATCH study involves over 5,000 ethnically diverse third graders from 96 elementary schools in Minneapolis, San Diego, Austin and New Orleans.  CATCH has been mostly instituted in schools all across the country.

The prevalence of overweight among children aged 6 to 11 more than doubled, going from 7% in 1980 to 18.8% in 2004.

“The YMCA of Greater Rochester was the first to adapt the CATCH program into its after school programming to allow children to be healthy from a young age,” said Kristen Rusho, director of the Greater Rochester YMCA’s CATCH program. “Our program caters mostly to children in second, third, and fourth grade.”

The program creates activities that are based on certain criteria that the instructor believe are best for both the child’s mental and physical health. All games are non-elimination games so children can build their self-confidence. All games are non-stop activity based to keep the children from standing around.  The final and most important factor is involvement of the children. As a result, no child feels left out and all feel that they are good enough to participate in the activities. Rusho also explains that the supervisors are told to not pick teams, but to separate the group into two so that there is no child that is picked last.  Rusho points out that CATCH is not solely a program that aims to help obese children lose weight.

“We have had a good amount of families with overweight children who have come back and said that their kid has lost weight and they see a definite change,” said Rusho. “ However, the biggest part of our program is prevention and changing behavior. We teach the children how physical activities can make them healthy and how it is important to make healthy decisions about the food they eat.”

There is an old saying that says bad habits die hardest, but if people such as Kristin Rusho help break the terrible habits of children early on, it won’t be hard for kids to stay healthy throughout their lives.

Dr. Stephen Cook is a pediatrician at Strong Memorial Hospital. He deals with many obese children and has recognized the role that environment plays in helping people with obesity. Motivation seems to be the most important factor in helping bring about change in the lifestyles of parents and their children.  There is no medicine or pill that can be consumed to bring about large weight loss.  Dr. Cook stresses the importance of a family’s drive to change the way they live.

When a parent takes their child to a doctor, it is not easy to tell that parent that their child is obese. Parents are informed about their child’s unhealthy lifestyle and that if no change is brought about, a difficult life lay ahead.

However, Dr. Cook stresses that it is hard for families to change their lifestyles because of various reasons.  One reason why change is difficult is because of children with single parents.  Dr. Cook describes provides an example of a single parent of three who works two jobs.  By the end of the day she is obviously exhausted and the easiest way to feed her children is to go to the nearest fast food eatery.  Even if the parent tries to provide fruits and vegetables for her children, the prices of those products are much more expensive than any fast food combo meal.

“Children with weight problems are put into a difficult situation because they have no way of helping themselves,” Cook said. “The parents are the ones in charge of what the child consumes and if the food intake doesn’t change, the weight will not change.”

Dr. Cook likens obesity to the problems caused by cigarettes.  Trans fatty acids (trans fat) are scientifically created substances that cause harm to the human body.  Nicotine is one harmful and addictive element created by scientists.  In 2000, poor diet including obesity and physical inactivity caused 400,000 U.S. deaths -- more than 16 percent of all deaths and the No. 2 killer. That compares with 435,000 for tobacco, or 18 percent, as the top underlying killer.

To fight the growing problem of childhood obesity, Dr. Cook provides various opportunities where changes in various environments can lead to more healthy youths.  At home, parents should set aside time to cook healthy meals and provide time for physical activity for their kids.  Schools should fund mandatory physical education, make strict standards on foods and take away vending machines.  Communities should provide pavement, bike trails and playgrounds for children to run around on.  Also, the community should protect the open spaces for children so parents will not keep their kids inside the home fearing their safety.  The health care system should improve insurance for effective obesity treatment.  Lastly, the government should consider tax on fast food and soft drinks, subsidize nutritious food, require nutrition facts on fast food, prohibit food marketing targeted at children, and increase the funding for public-health campaigns for obesity.  Not all of these suggestions need to be enforced to bring about change.

If we subsidized food such as vegetables, prices would go down,” Cook said.” “What’s the harm in trying this?  We’re willing to pay for bariatric surgery for kids, yet we won’t pay for mandatory P.E. in schools.”

Four high school teachers were interviewed about the growing obesity epidemic at the high school level.  Their thoughts on the subject shed light onto what is a growing problem among high school age students.  Male and female physical education instructors whom teach single gender classes, a high school nurse and a high school guidance counselor were interviewed.  The people interviewed asked to be kept anonymous so we are not disclosing their names.  All agreed that obesity was a growing issue among students particularly affecting kids self esteem.  Self esteem problems seem to be a larger issue among girls than boys. 

When a male high school physical education instructor was asked about the level of participation for his student he asserted that all male students tend to participate equally.  While he did note that he will occasionally see students making fun of obese students and failing to pass them the ball, he claimed for most part all students at least attempt to get involved in class.  However the answers of a female instructor differed greatly.  She asserted that the obese female students receive a large amount of teasing about their weight and are very self conscious. Such serious self image issues can hurt kids in a variety of ways, not always just being their overall health.  Student’s grades may suffer as a result of how they feel about themselves. 

“We only grade students on their level of participation, rather than skill level however some of our obese students are still more willing to fail than participate.”  The female physical education instructor said. “For example, during swimming instruction, obese female students will do anything to escape the horrors of having to appear in front of their classmates in a bathing suit.”

These self image problems may carry over into all parts of obese student’s life, and even effect them into adulthood.  However, physical education is not only a problem affected by obesity.  Obese students can have related health problems. “If a student is obese,” the high school nurse said when asked what trends she observes in obesity among students, “he or she tends to have other health problems when compared to non-obese students.” 

She noted that obese students might not have higher blood pressure or may not tend to get injured more in gym classes.  However, one student was cited as having a diet for high cholesterol.  The nurse also noted that obesity causes more of a self esteem issue for girls than boys, telling us that obese girls will often fake injuries to get out of swimming and running. 

“Students who are obese and try to skip gym classes usually sneak into the cafeteria,” the high school guidance counselor said. “This is just another example of how obesity leads to emotional problems such as a loss in self-confidence.”  

The counselor says that when he has a student who is experiencing self esteem issues related to obesity he tries to point them in the direction of a doctor or fitness trainer.  He also notes that the self esteem issues, while usually moderate, can be severe.  The counselor says that one of the students he guides, who is obese, caused physical harm to his body and was suicidal.

Obesity is a topic that is usually taken lightly in society today.  While it is getting some publicity, people still consider it a minor health threat.  However, there are problems caused by this disease that are not just physical, but also emotional.  Self- esteem issues caused by this disease can cause children to develop interpersonal skills much slower than their peers, causing larger problems down the road.  If people don’t start to take this epidemic more seriously the consequences may become extreme.