Study knocks area's eating, exercise habits

Her cheeks still a rosy pink from an afternoon swim with her cousin, Autumn Bagby is deep in the grip of summer. With the sun out, the pool and her bike now tempt her as often as the TV.

It may sound like playtime, but the 10-year-old is pretty serious about getting up and moving.

Last year, she and her mom Tammy made a commitment to each other: They would eat healthy food and exercise more.

Sure enough, they are both more fit. What’s been even better is Autumn’s newfound self-confidence and all the extra mother-daughter time she’s snagged.

With each weekly goal they reach, they reward themselves. This weekend they’re lounging in pedicure chairs.

The Bagbys aren’t the norm though, and that has many in the health field concerned. Getting fit isn’t easy for anyone, but when kids don’t have a support crew, it may actually prove impossible.

That’s scary news considering the Lynchburg area was slapped with the moniker eighth “most obese” metro in the country in a yearlong Gallup-Healthway study that found 33 percent of Central Virginia adults are obese. The national average for obesity is 26.5 percent.

Gallup-Healthways polled, by telephone, more than 353,000 adults in 187 metro areas throughout 2009. Surveyors got residents’ height and weight and used that to calculate their body mass index, which can determine if a person is overweight.

From there, pollsters asked about diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol, heart attacks, fruit and vegetable consumption, exercise, smoking and eating habits. That information was used to create a physical health index ranking and a health behaviors index ranking for each metro area. Lynchburg had a PHI of 145 and a HBI of 158, both out of 187.

Less than half — 46 percent — said they exercise at least 30 minutes three times per week and 57 percent said they eat fruits and vegetables frequently.

In a third ranking called the basic access index, Lynchburg-area residents were asked if they have easy access to fruits and vegetables, safe places to exercise, enough money to buy food and health insurance. The area fared better, ranking 104th of the 187 metro areas.

In that part of the study, 10 to 14 percent of residents said they don’t have access to fruits and vegetables or safe exercise spots. About 23 percent said they don’t have enough money for food and 15 percent don’t have insurance.

Centra clinician Beckie Hunt isn’t too surprised by the findings. Most of Hunt’s clients say they are too busy to fit in exercise or plan healthy meals.

If this generation of adults is too busy to take care if itself, Hunt and other health care providers worry about the next generation of children.

Hunt, clinical administrator for cardiovascular wellness and prevention for Centra Health, doesn’t see our fast-paced lifestyles letting up. She tries to teach clients that retirement is not when you start taking care of yourself.

You start as a youth.

Most people say they don’t have time to engage in a healthy lifestyle. Worse than that, though, is that many people don’t care enough about themselves to see that living fit is worth the time, she said.

The payoff is immeasurable, for children as well as adults.

Consider an overweight male teenager, for example. The extra pounds can put him at an increased risk for metabolic syndrome — a cluster of problems such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar, abnormal cholesterol, and excess body fat around the waist. And a child with metabolic syndrome is at greater risk of getting diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Health care providers used to worry about smoking, Hunt said. Now they worry about obesity, which is closely linked to diabetes, some forms of cancer and heart disease.

If the obesity trend continues, Hunt wagers that by 2020 a high percentage of children in Central Virginia will have Type II diabetes.

“If we could just get into the mindset where Happy Hour is walking time and time to be outside it would save us money and it would save our health in the long run,” Hunt said. “We just put so much focus on eating.”

Eating right all the time and exercising is no simple task, though, the Bagbys said.

Sitting in her dress clothes after work, waiting to work out with Autumn, Tammy Bagby admits that time remains a challenge.

“It’s still so tempting to do what’s convenient,” Bagby said. “We still struggle with that.”

One way around it has been to plan meals and grocery shopping a week in advance. They make lists, read labels and rarely bring junk food into the house.

“The main things I look for is sodium, sugar and fat grams,” said Autumn, who wants less than eight grams of sugar and five grams of fat in each serving, whether it’s the pretzels or pudding.

“Sodium is always outrageous,” she said.

The family eats most meals at home, where they can monitor ingredients and servings. Portion sizes were the first thing she learned about last year when she and her mom joined a Centra program called Shapedown.

It’s pretty straightforward, “when you’re satisfied, don’t eat any more,” Autumn said.

Autumn’s knowledge about how to eat healthy is what Mary Bice, an instructor for Shapedown, has been sharing with clients for decades. The Bagbys enrolled in a weekly beginner program last year and are now in an advanced program. Autumn’s older sister Lauren participated in Shapedown a few years ago, and Autumn was eager to become as fit as Lauren, who is now in high school.

Until kids take classes such as Shapedown, they often don’t realize that junk food has no value, said Bice, who has taught children as young as 6.

“Shapedown teaches them to love their body, and when they love their body they will take care of their body,” Bice said.

The class, which runs year-round, is all about putting kids in control of their lives. Although some lose weight along the way, all walk away with a stronger connection to their family and a stronger sense of self.

Armed with a plastic Coke bottle chained to 17 sugar packets, Bice makes it perfectly clear to everyone in class that if the kids are going to get fit, it’s the parents who are going to need to set strict limits on what kids can and can’t do and eat.

Kids get “too much TV, too much computer and too much video games,” Bice said. “TVs are babysitters.”

When parents set limits, kids feel loved, safe and they succeed, Bice said.

In fact, kids who don’t have that level of parental support can’t even sign up for Shapedown. Children and parents make a pledge to each other when they join Shapedown to help one another. Parents promise to be positive role models and children promise to fill their lives with the people and activities that give them pleasure. They must complete weekly tasks as a team.

Family time, even if it’s just five minutes visiting in the car, is the lynchpin of Shapedown. With that, kids learn how to express their emotions — as in, “I’m eating because I’m bored. I am not actually hungry” — and parents learn how to really listen, repeating things back to their children to make sure they understand how the child feels.

The Bagbys have learned that maintaining a fit lifestyle takes work.

But it some ways, it is as easy as stepping out their front door.

When it comes to having a safe place to exercise, Aut-umn reaches over and points to her yard. Exercise is the fun part; you just pick your favorite things to do, said Autumn, who is partial to riding her bike across the yard.

“Getting healthy isn’t hard at all,” Tammy Bagby said. “And when you see your child get excited and her self-confidence increase, it inspires you to cook healthier and to shop better.”