This press release contains dated information and should be used for background only.
KANSAS CITY, Kan.—The rate of childhood obesity has tripled over the past three decades and is considered an epidemic in the United States. With one in six children considered obese, The University of Kansas Hospital is now combating the problem by offering the area’s first comprehensive program for childhood obesity that is reimbursed by insurance and free to participants, known as the Healthy Hawks Weight Management Program.
Under the co-direction of James Lynn Casey, MD, a pediatric endocrinologist, and Ann McGrath Davis, PhD, Healthy Hawks is a yearlong program that focuses not only on losing weight, but finding out the causes for a patient’s obesity, and working on ways to develop better lifestyle and food choices. Patients and families will meet twice a week for 12 weeks in individual and group sessions with a team of medical professionals, including physicians, exercise physiologists, psychologists and registered dietitians. Topics during the sessions will be diet and nutrition, exercise, lifestyle and behavior and treatment of medical problems, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and joint problems. After the initial three months, as families begin to transfer what they have learned to their home life, patients and families will meet once a month for nine months of follow up treatment.
If a child goes untreated, data show an overweight 11-year old is likely to develop one or more of the diseases associated with being overweight in adulthood-even if he or she looses the weight at age 12, says Ann McGrath Davis, PhD, assistant professor of behavioral pediatrics, co-director of Healthy Hawks.
“That’s why it is a child health problem, because it is significantly affecting their adult health status, regardless of their adolescent weight status,” says Davis. “So, the time to treat obese and overweight children is when they are pediatric patients.”
Dr. Casey has seen nearly 400 children in his practice who need to be treated for being overweight or obese. Of those, roughly 20 percent are already type 2 diabetics, 20 percent are pre-diabetics and the other 60 percent have excessive insulin in their blood.
“With obesity on track to overtake smoking as the leading preventable cause of death, it’s imperative that the medical community start treating children and adolescents with weight problems now,” says Casey.
The University of Kansas Hospital is preparing for its first group to begin the program on March 1. Every three months, another group is enrolled. A small percentage of children will need surgery to help them lose weight, which will involve in-depth psychological evaluation, but surgery is not part of the current treatment.
“It’s definitely a family commitment, and the more family members you have involved the better,” Davis says of the program. “When the whole family has a weight problem, that is often due to family health behaviors, not necessarily genetics as was previously thought. A family tends to have similar health behaviors, so we try to work with the whole family to change their health behaviors.”
FirstGuard Health Plan, a provider in the Kansas HealthWave program, is the first health insurance plan to make Healthy Hawks available to its members as a covered service. For more information, contact Dr. James Lynn Casey or Dr. Ann McGrath Davis at 913-588-6326.
The University of Kansas Hospital is the region's premier academic medical center, providing a full range of care. The hospital was founded in 1906 and was removed from the University of Kansas system to be governed by an independent Authority Board in 1998. Since then the hospital has seen record levels of patient volume, patient satisfaction and financial stability. The hospital is affiliated with the University of Kansas Schools of Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health, and their various leading edge research projects.