​Brought to you by HBO and the nation’s leading research institutions, this documentary series confronts the realities of living with obesity. Broken down into four parts, each segment addresses something different from the true scope of the obesity epidemic to the damage obesity is doing to our nation’s children.

Part 1: Consequences

Part 2: Choices

Part 3: Children in Crisis

Part 4: Challenges

​While parents usually decide what kids eat, it’s no secret that kids will eat (especially snacks) what’s available. Therefore, the key to healthy families is surrounding everyone with healthier options. Getting the family on board with healthy life choices will also help individuals when it comes to losing weight.

​Do:

• Do eat healthy foods and choose smaller portions. Children often copy their caregivers over time.
• Do provide an array of healthy foods in the home and include them in every meal.
• Do view healthy eating as a normal part of family life.
• Do prepare meals together and make it a time to enjoy each other and eat well.
• Do ask your children what they would like to eat and offer them choices if you can. Ask them what fruits or vegetables they would like to eat at a meal or snack.
• Do remain positive, even if your children do not want to eat healthy right away. In the long run, it will help them to want to try new healthy foods.

Don’t:

• Don’t punish children or put them down if they refuse to eat healthy foods. Be open to hearing their feelings.
• Don’t keep a lot of junk food in the home.
• Don’t use food as a reward for being good, and do not restrict food as a way to punish them.
• Don’t give too much praise, even when children do choose healthy foods. The habit of trying new foods is more likely to stick if they feel like it is their choice. For them, it should feel good to have the choice to taste new foods.
• Don’t force it when children do not like a certain food. Instead, try something new and healthy next time.
• Don’t take it personally when children refuse to eat what you have prepared.

Tips are from the American Medical Association.

​As a health care provider, you are in an ideal position to talk to your patients about weight control since excess weight can lead to diabetes, heart disease and other medical problems. At Medical Metabolic Specialists, we understand that this conversation is not always easy to have but is certainly important.

​Quickly Addressing Weight Problems in Clinic

Rule #1: You don’t have to talk about diet, exercise or life circumstance. Certainly, don’t start there.

Rule #2: Focus on readiness! When the topic of weight arises, think about stages of change.

When they say: I can’t, I won’t, make an excuse, or tell how great their diet is.

 What it means : Pre-contemplation stage of change. They can’t see it or don’t want to look at it.
What you do: Connect their weight or their behaviors to something they care about.

When they say: I might

What it means: Contemplation stage of change. They are on the edge.
What you do: Give a nudge. “Weight loss would really help.”

When they say: I will

What it means: Preparation stage of change
What you do: Ask for a plan and commitment: “How will you do that? When will you start?”

When they say: I am

What it means: Action stage of change. They are doing something.
What you do: Be encouraging. Say something positive. Let them know help is available.

 Rule #3 : Use the right words or they may not hear what you say.

• Talk about “weight,” “excess weight,” or “weight problem.”
• Some will not listen when you say “obese,” “fat,” “heavy,” and others.

Rule #4: Patients and doctors are more effective when thinking of obesity as a disease that afflicts.

• Use patient -centric language “This is a disease.” “Attack the disease and not yourself.” “It is not your fault, but it is your responsibility.” (draw an analogy to asthma)
  
  

This is an important conversation. When they are ready for action, be ready to help. Medical Metabolic Specialists can help you create solutions that work for you, your clinic, and your patients. Give us a call at (970) 980-6024 or send us an email.

Last February, we posted an article that highlighted research on the correlation between eating late and your blood sugar. The study concluded that ultimately, when food is consumed late at night, when our glucose tolerance is lowest, the body is more likely to store those calories as fat rather than burn it as energy. Repeatedly eating late will ultimately lead to weight gain.

​Another new study, led by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, has shown that regularly eating late in the day can have negative health consequences. Not only can eating late promote weight gain but it also has an unfavorable impact on energy metabolism and hormonal markers that are linked to health problems such as diabetes and heart disease.

A recent study conducted at The University of Pennsylvania points to potential dangers of weight bias internalization. While the results are mixed, there is new evidence to support the association between weight bias internalization and risk for metabolic syndrome.
​
Weight bias includes (WBI) pervasive negative stereotypes and prejudice regarding an individual’s overweight, such as attributions of responsibility and/or incompetence. New research suggests that adults with obesity seeking weight-loss treatment, who scored higher on a WBI scale were more likely to have metabolic syndrome compared to those with lower scores.

Over the years, researchers have proven time after time that beige fat possesses both the qualities of white and brown fat. This “hybrid fat” can not only hoard energy, like white fat, but also burn energy, similar to brown fat.
In 2015, researchers discovered another interesting feature of beige fat: it has the ability to switch between storing and burning energy. Most recently, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco found a way of keeping beige cells in the energy-burning state.
Why does this matter? By preventing beige fat cells from digesting their own mitochondria, researchers actually protected mice against obesity and symptoms of prediabetes. A graduate student who worked on the study, Svetlana Altshuler-Keylin, explains. “We knew that the color of brown and beige fat comes from the amount of pigmented mitochondria they contain, so we wondered whether something was going on with the mitochondria when beige fat turns white.”

When we hear the term Body Mass Index (BMI) it’s often in relation to conditions such as Diabetes or high blood pressure. It’s not very often we hear BMI having anything to do with the brain – that is about to change. Researchers from the University of Cambridge and Yale University have found a new link between high BMI and brain structure.
​
Recently published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, the team of researchers showed that the brains of overweight people age at a much faster rate than those of their lean counterparts. In fact, researchers were able to show that the brains of obese or overweight individuals appear to age an extra ten years compared to lean people. Through brain scanning technology, the scientists were able to draw conclusions from the decrease in volume of white matter in the overweight or obese groups.