Maine Medical Center takes a bite out of childhood obesity

Cornelia Clair readily admits that she just didn’t know what else she could do to help her son control his weight. At 13, his body mass index (BMI) – a measure of body weight relative to height – classified him as obese.

He’s not alone. Nearly one in three Maine children aged 5 to 18 is at risk of being overweight – or already is. Among kindergarteners alone, the at-risk or actual incidence of overweight rises to nearly 40%. At risk for overweight is defined as a BMI between the 85th and 95th percentile for age and gender, and a BMI at or greater than the 95th percentile is considered overweight or obese.

“His weight just kept going up and up,” Clair says, despite a fairly active family lifestyle and her best efforts to provide healthy meals and snacks at home. “I was really frightened for his future.

Frustrated, Clair asked her sister to do an internet search for local resources to help overweight kids. That search turned up a phone number that eventually connected Clair to Maine Medical Center’s Countdown to a Healthy ME program, an innovative clinic for preventing and treating childhood obesity located at the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital (BBCH).

“I got a referral from my son’s doctor to enroll him in the 12-week program,” Clair says. “What a difference it’s made. It’s given both of us the skills to make better choices. And it’s empowered my son to take care of himself. He’s not only losing weight, but he’s also gained a tremendous amount of self-confidence.”

This is one of the success stories that have emerged from the Countdown to A Healthy ME program. But the difficulty that Clair faced in finding the program underscores a problem just as troubling as the childhood obesity epidemic: the need to raise awareness among parents, schools, providers and health systems about the resources that exist to help children and adolescents whose very lives are at risk due to their weight.

This challenge prompted Maine Medical Center to seek additional funding for its Countdown to A Healthy ME program from the Mattina R. Proctor Foundation. The private foundation has been a strong champion of innovative programs that address unmet needs in healthcare, particularly in Maine, and has supported other Maine Medical Center initiatives including a pediatric lead screening project

“There is so much work on childhood obesity already underway in Maine,” says Victoria (Tory) Rogers, MD, director of the Kids CO-OP Program at Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital and a tireless advocate for children’s health, citing such programs as the nationally recognized Maine Youth Overweight Collaborative, the MaineHealth Healthy Weight Initiative, Let’s Go! (a community-based initiative to promote healthy lifestyle choices for children, youth and families in 12 greater Portland communities) as well as Maine Medical Center’s Countdown to A Healthy ME program.

“We wanted to take the lead in bringing all these parties together so there’s no duplicating of efforts or reinventing the wheel, and so that patients and parents see a seamless, coordinated system of resources that’s easy to access,” she notes. There also was a need to expand the Countdown program; nearly 100 patients are on the waiting list for the clinic-based program at the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital.

The Proctor Foundation agreed with Maine Medical Center’s vision, and awarded the program a substantial, multi-year commitment in December of 2006. The funds will enable the program to hire personnel, expand its activities in Maine’s schools, and disseminate existing clinical tools to primary care practices in Maine to aid in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of overweight children.

“This grant will enable us to leapfrog ahead of where we are now and go where the kids are,” says Rogers, who serves as the lead physician on the grant. “Before, we only had the clinical arm at the children’s hospital. Now we’ll be able to extend our reach to the schools, the community and providers. It’s very exciting.”

A cornerstone of the Countdown program is the “5-2-1-0” message developed by the Maine Youth Overweight Collaborative:

• 5 – Eating at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables on most days.
• 2 – Limiting TV or computer screen time to two hours or less daily.
• 1 – Participating in at least one hour of physical activity every day.
• 0 – Encouraging water and low-fat or fat-free milk instead of soda and sugar-sweetened drinks.
  “It’s an easily understood message that works with kids and parents,” says Rogers. “We feel strongly that the best way to tackle the obesity epidemic is to address issues of weight with children and their families, and we have a strong model in place with the Countdown to a Healthy ME program. The grant from the Proctor Foundation enables us to take the program to the next level.”

For more information about the Countdown to a Healthy ME program, please call 207-662-5210.