Teen girls exercise healthy eating

Waking up early to get breakfast is hard enough, especially one without bright packaging screaming with sugar.

“Think fruits or bagels,” said 15-year-old Shayla Foster, who said she avoids sugary cereals and Pop-Tarts.

Shayla used to avoid breakfast entirely, so simply eating breakfast was a goal she developed at BodyWorks, a federally funded program trying to help preteen and teenage girls and their families create healthier lifestyles.

Dr. Monica Richter, a pediatrician at Valley Children’s Clinic in Renton and a BodyWorks trainer, just finished leading her first 10-week session. Although already in a position to caution young adults about the dangers of obesity, Richter said that a program such as BodyWorks is necessary to catalyze a healthy lifestyle change.

Dr. Wanda Jones, the deputy assistant secretary for the federal Office on Women’s Health, said the office — part of the Department of Health and Human Services — started working on the program about six years ago, before “the obesity epidemic had grabbed the headlines.” Still in its pilot phase, it has been under way less than a year.

“Parents need to be role models for eating habits and exercise,” Richter said, noting that high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes are riding the coattails of obesity.

According to the Office on Women’s Health, many girls skip breakfast, have non-nutritious lunches and do not eat dinner with their families. The office, which routinely funds health-related programs, is formatting a class for boys that will debut before the end of the year.

Richter wants to reach girls before they fall into the overweight category.

Several of the free, once-a-week sessions are designed for parents only, while others include daughters. Each class has a different focus but leaves time for members to share their goals and tips about healthy living.

“My goal was that we would learn to eat better as a family,” said Lorraine Koepsell, a mother and a nurse at Valley Children’s Clinic Pediatrics who is a trainer and went through the class with her daughter. “I’m not saying that we don’t go to fast food once in a while, but now we have kids go to the grocery store with us. If they’re included in the planning, they’re more likely to eat it.”

Each BodyWorks participant receives a kit containing a video on healthy shopping and cooking strategies, a recipe book, food and fitness journals and a weekly meal planner, among other healthy planning goodies. Information is included about serving size: for vegetables it’s a half-cup. Trivia about nutrition (How much sugar is in a can of cola? Nine teaspoons) peppers the reading pamphlets.

“We initially produced almost 2,000 of these tool kits, and they are virtually all gone in less than a year’s time,” Jones said.

“I like the program because it focuses on living healthier, which focuses on eating healthier and being active,” said Alethia Rodriguez, a weight management consultant at Healthy Habits Healthy You. “It’s not for someone ‘overweight or obese.’ ”

A new trainer who plans to teach a BodyWorks class on Mercer Island, she channeled her newfound knowledge about healthy eating into helping others eat more nutritious food and exercise regularly.

Each BodyWorks program includes about nine people.

“In a group program you feed off of a lot of ideas,” Rodriguez said. “For the parents to hear how other busy and single parents are doing it, it gives them a level of support and encouragement.”

Dr. Donna Johnson, associate director of the University of Washington’s Center for Public Health Nutrition and a registered dietitian, commended the program for encouraging journaling and a positive group environment, but she doubts that BodyWorks is committed to helping parents find time to create healthier lifestyles.

“Pretty much every parent in America is feeling stressed,” she said. “It’s not that they don’t want to provide these wonderful foods and recipes. When you get caught up being a parent, sometimes you resort to unhealthy choices.”

About 127 million adults in the U.S. are overweight, 60 million are obese and 9 million are severely obese, according to 2000 data from the American Obesity Association.

“We’ve got such a rapid increase in childhood obesity, if we add that to the traditional weight gain that we gain in our 40s, 50s and 60s, 75 percent of us will have diabetes,” Johnson said.

Compared with other Western societies, the U.S. is gaining weight faster, Johnson said.

“Everybody is going up, but places like Denmark where people don’t drive their cars (as often), their slope is much less steep than ours,” she said.

BodyWorks participants examine how their appetites correspond with their moods. The program helped Shayla’s mother, Corrine Foster, replace her soda addiction with water.

“We did some role-playing with why are we eating,” Foster said. “Are we stressed eaters or upset eaters? You learn more about yourself.”

The mother and daughter team have started to use BodyWorks tactics.

“We started a family planning chart so we could plan our meals and activities so the family would not be just sedentary in front of the TV,” Corrine said, referring to the family walks and Frisbee games they enjoy.

The duo also learned how to belly dance, played the video game “Dance Dance Revolution” and practiced Scottish dancing during intermissions of the weekly 90-minute sessions, a time in which group members demonstrated ways they could all exercise together.

“I really push with kids that they should start living and eating healthier, because one, it will help them make those choices early on, and two, it will be easier later on,” Rodriguez said.