Summary of the article

Fighting Childhood Obesity

"A lot of parents call and say that their child… is overweight … they do not want to bring up their weight, because they do not make them feel badly about it" Cindy Zedeck, the director of Packard Pediatric Control Program Weight says. This program helps families that register on how to deal with the problem of obesity their children suffer from in order to solve it.

Six months is the period that a course takes in the program. The program uses a traffic light system to illustrate which kinds of food should be reduced; soda and cookies are reds, and other foods are yellows. So, soda and cookies should not be eaten constantly. It is not a diet- a word that children must not hear at all. It is just course to learn eating and exercise habit.

Gabriel Rodriguez, 11 years old, was suffering from obesity. After he completed six months in program, he succeeded in reducing his red lights from 90 to 30 a month. He and his mother go monthly to PPWCP to make sure that Gabriel is keeping his habits he has had.

In closing, the program was established in 1999. Since that time, about 80 percent of the overweight kids have reached their aims. In addition, this program helps families to avoid the high costs of seeing the pediatricians.

Summarized by Ahmed.