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UB enrolling families
in free weight-loss program
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“Because we simultaneously treat obese parents and children with the same program, the benefits extend to the rest of the family, too.”
Obesity in childhood can create serious compromises to physical and mental health and longevity, but parents who want to encourage healthier eating face significant challenges.
Now, a free, weight-loss program developed at UB—one of the nation’s only programs proven to achieve and maintain long-term (10 years) weight loss in children—is enrolling Western New York families. The Childhood Weight Control Program is funded by the National Institutes of Health.
To be eligible, children must be overweight and between the ages of 8 and 12, which are considered to be the best ages to intervene in creating healthy eating habits; participants also must have at least one parent who is overweight.
Nearly 1 in 3 children in the U.S. are now overweight or obese, says Leonard H. Epstein, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and director of the UB program. “The number has doubled in the last 20 years and it keeps increasing,” Epstein notes. “At the same time, nearly 2 out of 3 adults are overweight and 1 of 3 adults in the U.S. is also obese.”
Clearly, engaging in behaviors that encourage healthy eating and more physical activity is a tougher challenge than it used to be, Epstein explains. “Children today are faced with many more opportunities for unhealthy eating than they were just 20 years ago. There are many more high-calorie foods available. Portion sizes in restaurants are larger now and children have more opportunities to be sedentary than they used to have.”
In spite of these challenges, UB’s Childhood Weight Control Program has shown consistent success. That’s because the UB program is one of the nation’s very few childhood obesity programs that is evidence-based—that is, based on the best available evidence from peer-reviewed scientific data. Those data, generated by prominent obesity researchers at UB and elsewhere, long have shown that treatment programs like UB’s, involving both parent and child, are the single most effective way to achieve healthy weight in children.
During the past 10-year study, the percentage of overweight children who had participated in the UB program and were able to maintain a healthy weight at 10-year follow-up was 50 percent, far higher than the usual percentage, which is typically 10 percent or less.
Epstein points out that for children in a weight-loss program, the key indicator is the child’s “percent overweight,” which means how much more the child weighs than is considered average for his or her height. For example, if a child should weigh 100 pounds and he actually weighs 150 pounds, he is considered 50 percent overweight.
“Children in our program see an average percent overweight decrease of 22.6 percent after treatment, with the most successful children showing percent overweight decrease of 27.6 percent,” says Epstein. Parents see a weight loss of 22.9 pounds on average, while the most successful parents see a loss of 38.7 pounds following treatment, he adds.
“And, because we are simultaneously treating obese parents and children with the same program, the benefits extend to the rest of the family, too,” he continues. “The biggest challenge to obesity treatment is not weight loss, but long-term weight maintenance and that’s a key success of our program.”
The UB program’s success over the years has led to more than $20 million in funding from the NIH, allowing the program to expand to more families in Western New York.
“Our program is not a quick-fix; it’s a proven, family-based, lifestyle intervention,” says Epstein. “We are providing our families with tools for a lifetime of good health. We are teaching them how to change their lifestyles.”
The Childhood Weight Control Program is designed to boost physical activity and healthy eating for overweight children and parents using the famous Traffic Light Diet, developed by Epstein. In addition to learning healthy eating behaviors, children and parents learn behavioral changes that encourage them to engage more in healthy behaviors, such as increased physical activity, and less in unhealthy ones.
Families accepted into the program must attend weekly meetings for the first 12 weeks, then biweekly and monthly meetings.
Epstein also holds an appointment in the departments of Social and Preventive Medicine, Community Health and Health Behavior, and Exercise and Nutrition Sciences in the School of Public Health and Health Professions.
For more information about enrolling in the UB program, call 716-829-6697 or email ub-healthykids@buffalo.edu.
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