Get Fit: A Rocky Mountain Youth Program to Reduce Childhood Obesity

This article is an excerpt from an article in Health Policy Solutions, written by Katie Kerwin McCrimmon.

Group appointments represent one of the newest trends in health care. They help medical practitioners save time and create support communities for patients. Dr. Kim White and nutritionist Beth Ondrako found that they could give the same information to multiple people at once. And, if some “no shows” forget to come, the providers haven’t wasted their time. On this day, the turnout is great and the conference room is packed. Organizers have encouraged family members to attend since getting fit is a family affair. The group meeting also helps take away the stigma of coping with weight issues.

Welcome to cutting-edge care in the escalating war on child obesity.

“It lets the kids be in an atmosphere where they understand that there are a lot of kids who struggle with the exact same thing,” Ondrako said. “You touch more people’s lives in a group,” said White. “They get to interact with each other. It’s more fun. We want them to follow through. These kids are not thinking, ‘Oh, I have to be worried about diabetes someday.’ We try to find what inspires them. Why is this better for me? Maybe it’s so I can run faster.”

Dr. Cheryl Saipe, a pediatrician at Rocky Mountain Youth Clinics, created the Get Fit Clinic in 2006 because she and other providers were seeing so many children who were overweight and obese. Ondrako later came up with the idea of giving kids a written prescription to get fit. Now, during well-child visits, providers can give any family the prescription and invite them to join the Get Fit Clinic.

Nearly 650 children have participated in Get Fit since 2007 and another 147 have enrolled so far this year. Interest has been so high recently that Ondrako, the nutritionist, has doubled the time she spends each month at clinics in Denver, Thornton and Aurora. Organizers hope to expand funding next year to reach children at their mobile and school based clinics.

Altogether, the nonprofit provides care for more than 35,000 children during 55,000 visits a year. There are traditional pediatric clinics like this one in Denver along with non-traditional sites throughout the Denver area.

Most of the patients – 85 percent – come from low-income families whose children qualify for public health programs like Medicaid and CHP+. White estimates that more than half of all the kids she sees are obese. Among children ages 10 to 15, the numbers are even more staggering. “My guess is that over 85 percent are obese. It’s an epidemic,” White said. “Patients and parents are finally beginning to realize it’s a problem. In the past, we’d hear, ‘He’s fine. He’ll outgrow it.’” Yet, even when parents are willing to tackle obesity, they need help. And medical providers can’t do much to reverse the complex problem in short annual well-child visits.

Without intensive follow-up care, children and families stick with the same old patterns and come back year after year with ever-increasing weights that forecast lifelong health problems from diabetes to heart disease.

Childhood obesity in Colorado is increasing at the second fastest rate in the country. And the epidemic is especially pronounced among children of color and low-income kids.

In order to succeed, the Get Fit program very deliberately does not focus on weight loss. Rather, it’s much more about making incremental changes that promote a healthy lifestyle. “They’re not going to change because we tell them to do it. No one can do it for the child. You want them empowered with knowledge to change their lives,” White said. Lasting results are measured in small steps. Providers at Rocky Mountain tell children that every person’s body looks different and that’s fine. They encourage family members to focus on maintaining their current weight. Then, over time, as children grow taller, they will almost certainly grow leaner. And, healthy habits can last a lifetime.

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