Start school health clubs
Date: Saturday, September 18, 2010

Nearly one third of children in the United States are overweight or obese. The obesity rate has tripled in adolescents and more than doubled in younger groups in the last three decades. Childhood obesity places the overweight children at increased risk of morbidity and premature death. It has become one of the most pressing and unprecedented child health issues, an entirely preventable and treatable problem that we can't afford to neglect. Obesity costs the United States about $150 billion per year in direct medical costs. Childhood obesity is also a major impediment for military recruiters. It has now evolved into not only a national health crisis as labeled by President Barack Obama, but also as an economic and national security issue.

Children spend a large amount of their time at school, but the focus also needs to be on the home, community, government and faith-based groups to tackle unhealthy weight. Healthy You clinics or similar health facilities dealing exclusively with children's obesity problems are too few and far apart to be relied on solely to have a successful impact. Pediatricians feel frustrated by years of failure in improving the situation of their young overweight patients. The medical profession fails to counsel young disease-free adults on their weight problems and is busy caring for their immediate and compelling health problems and disease prevention.

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The U.K. government is using personal financial incentives to encourage healthy living and increasing funding to support more weight-management services. Knowledge alone often fails to change our behavior. There is a disconnect between what we know and what we do, and that is why public education campaigns often don't work. The idea of incentives is to help break bad habits, and once the new habit is established, the incentives can be removed. But unless we also change the environment, the chances of continued success are diminished. The current child nutrition legislation before the U.S. Congress should mandate the establishment of healthy weight management teams in the schools, comprising a nurse, a dietitian and a physical education teacher. They should coordinate and implement customized programs to promote healthy eating, increased physical activity, and education about lifestyle changes to prevent and control childhood obesity.

This team should be entrusted with the mandatory establishment of healthy weight clubs in all schools. Enrollment can be voluntary, with the consent and cooperation of the children's parents or guardian. These clubs can monitor body weight and other leading health indicators weekly and reward the biggest weight losers with attractive products, such as an iPad, laptop computer, bike, etc., on a monthly basis. Award recipients should be recognized and honored during school assemblies and publicized through the school media to stimulate others to take the challenge more seriously.

This reward-and-challenge concept can be customized to include more "winners" in the contest and can be funded by different sources, including pooled money from the program participants.

These incentives can work as conditioned stimulus, producing lifestyle changes as conditioned response in these children.

If we can influence schoolchildren to adopt healthy lifestyle changes, we may achieve a positive reverse impact on their parents that might help to control the obesity problem in the adults as well. By all means, we need to make it easier for individuals to perform the difficult task of resisting instant gratification for a sometimes hard-to-visualize long-term gain.

Chemplavil, an endocrinologist, has been practicing in Hampton for 32 years. He is the founder of