Addressing Childhood Obesity

Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Qualified Clinical Supervisor. She received her PhD in Mental Health Counseling from the University of Florida in 2002. In addition to being a practicing clinician, she has provided training to counselors, social workers, nurses and case managers internationally since 2006 through AllCEUs.com CEUs are available for this presentation at AllCEUs
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#obesity #mentalhealth #inflammation
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Addressing Childhood Obesity
Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes PhD, LPC-MHSP, LMHC
Executive Director: AllCEUs Counselor Education
Host: Counselor Toolbox Podcast
Objectives
- Learn about the effects of obesity on health
- Identify best practices for addressing obesity in childhood
Clinician Functions
- Engage
- Children
- Caregivers
- Communities (task forces, county commission committees)
- Assess
- Risk factors
- Barriers
- Motivations
- Set SMART Goals at the individual, family and community level
Clinician Functions
- Implementation of goals
- Monitoring
- Risk factors
- Protective factors
- Evaluation
- Engagement
- Goal achievement
Why do We Care- Impact of Obesity
- Physical Health
- Increased risk of becoming an adult with obesity
- Glucose intolerance and insulin resistance
- Type 2 Diabetes
- Multiple cancers
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Adult heart disease
- Low testosterone (males)
- Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
- Endometriosis
- Asthma
- Sleep apnea
- Joint problems
- Gastric Reflux
- Non-Alcoholic Hepatitis
- Back pain
- Mental Health
- Anxiety and depression
- Low self-esteem
- Lower perceived quality of life
- Being bullied
- Stigma
- Discrimination

Assess risk factors in the environment

Engage
- Engage neighborhoods to improve community-level risk factors that influence childhood obesity
- Lack of safe places to exercise
- Modeling of unhealthy behaviors (lots of fried food/take out, alcohol consumption, smoking)
- Improve health literacy
- Provide effective smoking cessation
- Encourage family-focused exercise
- Lack of health literacy (only 12% of adults are health literate)
- Fliers

Planning
- Develop interventions that are:
- Universally applied, as early as possible in multiple settings
- Infancy—Pediatrician, mommy and me clubs, daycares, videos, fitness centers*
- School age– School, afterschool care, fitness centers, home
- Targeted toward multiple behaviors
- Stress management
- Eating habits and choices
- Exercise and activity choices
- Sleep and health-related behaviors
- Develop interventions that are:
- Implemented using multiple approaches
- Handouts
- Festivals and activities
- Workplace wellness fairs
- Videos
- Homework that requires caregiver participation
- Create a healthy menu for a week, cook it and report back
- Inclusive of caregivers and the child

Summary
- Obesity prevention involves
- Educating the public as well as community stakeholders about nutrition, exercise, stress management and sleep hygiene
- Motivating healthy eating and exercise behaviors (modeling, media, opportunities)
- Reducing stress and improving coping in children and their caregivers
- Making healthy food more accessible, affordable and appealing
- Creating environments that are conducive to healthy eating and activity (parks, community centers, malls, schools, vending, sidewalks, community policing)
- Adults can make their own decisions regarding maintaining an unhealthy weight and health behaviors
- Children are cognitively unable to make informed decisions, so it is up to caregivers, schools, medical personnel and the media to help them make decisions that will enhance their health and self esteem.
- Children who are obese are at an increased risk of pediatric health problems, stigma and bullying as well as becoming an adult who is obese
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