Healthy Parents Fellowship

My friend, M, started a new internship today! She recently earned her masters degree in public health and is now using her knowledge in this new program called the Healthy Parents Fellowship.

Here is a little summary she sent to me about the program - it sounds great!

I start interning at what is
called the Healthy Parents Fellowship next Saturday. It takes place in
Washington Heights, which is upper Manhattan past Harlem, in a
neighborhood that has a very high obesity rate. Every other Saturday
our team will be educating a small group of adults about fitness,
nutrition and obesity. The idea is to educate them in a fun and
interesting way, but also sustainable. We will be doing activities
such as yoga, healthy cooking classes, and other exercise classes.
Also, each parent will design and implement a community action project
to spread healthy ideas to their families and friends. The fellowship
is a 6 month pilot program and the president of it wants to launch it
into a non-profit if all goes well!
I think it is brilliant to target the parents, who often decide what
their kids eat.

It is all funded by outside sources and we are raising money for it at
the link below:

http://rockethub.com/projects/4505-parent-leaders-battle-obesity-for-the-wi

I did some research in to the effects of parents on their kids long term eating habits. 

• One study being conducted by Lauren Branen and Janice Fletcher surveyed 546, 18-to-23 year old college students. The ideas make sense, but the conclusion was that some of the habits such as eating all the food on the plate and using food as an incentive, which are habits that can lead to obesity were learned from their parents/caregivers. Also most of their knowledge of nutrition came from what they were told by their caregiver- indicating no independent research and that the knowledge does not keep up with current information available.

• Another type of study was conducted on obese children in which the parents were the only agents of change. This was conducted by Golan, Fainaru, and Waizman in the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University.The parents were given 14 hour-long support and educational sessions on nutrition. They also conducted a control group in which they educated the children only, not the parents.The results show that the changes in weight were much greater when the parents were the agent of change. The methods of change were largely based on eating habits such as eating while standing (my mom’s favorite thing to  tell me not to do), eating while watching TV, eating between meals, and eating following stress).

The combination of methods of study reinforce each other and show that the eating habits that parents learn and teach to their children have a great affect on the development of child and on obesity ratings.

M also sent me a New York Times article which explores this issue, which can be read here. The article explains that obesity is becoming a greater issue as insurers and employers now have to pay for childhood obesity services. Another program like M’s called UnitedHealth uses 16 hour-long sessions for a child accompanied by a parent. The program has seen great success including a young boy who was 122 pounds and lost 30 of them. The problem they point out is that not many children want to participate in the  programs and there really aren’t many programs like this to begin with. But with all of this success it makes sense that new programs such as the Healthy Parents Fellowship are starting.

If you are interested in supporting the fellowship, please click on this link (also posted above).

I am looking forward to hear more as you continue with the internship, M!