Too fat to toddle: How plump kids are transformed at fat camp
By NATASHA COURTENAY-SMITH - 29th April 2008
At just seven years old, Shane Holleywell already weighed almost 10st. His Body Mass Index (BMI) was a staggering 36.9, double what it should be, making him morbidly obese; the only clothes that would fit him were for children five years older.
His weight severely affected his mobility. The sheer effort of walking up the two flights of stairs to the family’s flat left him in tears.
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Teighan Robertson before fat camp, weighing six stone
Shane has been hugely overweight for years, and on one occasion, aged nearly three, had to be admitted to hospital as an emergency after he turned blue in his sleep: his body weight was crushing his airways and suffocating him.
By the time Teighan Robertson was one, she was already too heavy for her mother to lift. Four years later she was wearing clothes meant for a 12-yearold, she weighed 6st 2lb and her BMI was 27.
As with Shane, the slightest physical activity was too much. At an age when her contemporaries were learning to ride a bike, the five-year-old would have to lean against the gate to catch her breath even after a short run down the garden path.
Theirs are horrifyingly common stories. Around four-and-a-half million children in the UK are overweight or obese, and the problem is growing.
More pre-school children than ever — a quarter of them — fall into these two categories. And the worry is that once obese, they will remain so, with serious implications for their health.
“Eight out of ten obese children will become obese adults,” says Professor Paul Gately, director of Carnegie Weight Management at Leeds Metropolitan University.
Not only does this expose them to problems suchas bullying, but it puts them at greater risk of premature death through conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
How is it that parents can let their children get so big?
Weight for me! Teighan with mum Sonia after losing almost 11⁄2st
Professor Gately says most parents are in denial about the real cause of the problem — that they are to blame.
“They come to me with all sorts of reasons as to why their child is overweight, such as a slow metabolism or the idea that being overweight is in the family genes,” he says.
“But this isn’t the problem.
“The fact is that parents are confused by food — they hear all the messages about fats, sugar and salt being bad, and they feel overwhelmed.
“They are often unable to read food labels properly — simply because they haven’t been shown how to.
“Really, the only thing they need to worry about is calories. It’s a simple equation of energy in versus energy out. If we eat too much and exercise too little, we become overweight.”
Not only do parents overestimate how many calories their child needs but, he says, they also usefood — particularly sweets, chocolates and crisps — “to show their children love and control their behaviour”.
“Childhood obesity is on the rise, largely because children are increasingly sedentary and parents are uneducated about diet. While help is available for older children, there has been little intervention for pre-school children.
“The more we can nip pre-school obesity in the bud, the more successful we’ll be at tackling later-childhood and adult obesity.”
To this end, Professor Gately has just run Britain’s first weight loss camp for children under eight (he’s run similar programmes for teenagers for the past eight years).
At the camp, which features in the ITV documentary Too Fat To Toddle next Tuesday, he helped parents tackle their misapprehensions and offered common-sense advice — with startling results.
Not only did the children involved in the programme lose significant amounts of weight, but in research to be published tomorrow in the Journal Of Atherosclerosis And Thrombosis, their levels of LDL — the “bad” cholesterol linked to heart disease — also dropped. SHANE and Teighan were among the first attendees at the camp and, six weeks later, both of them have lost a significant amount of weight.
But not without their mothers having to face up to some painful truths.
“Because I’ve always been a size eight, and my two other children are slim, I assumed Teighan had some sort of genetic condition that was causing her weight gain,” says her mother, 32-yearold Sonia Robertson from Tullibody, in Clackmannanshire, Scotland.
In fact, it emerged that Teighan was consuming a massive 2,680 calories a day — 600 more than an adult woman should eat, and more than twice what a child of her age should have.
An average three-year-old needs around 1,100 calories a day; an average five-year-old needs 1,200 calories; and an average seven-year-old 1,400 to 1,500. “As a baby, when Teighan cried I’d feed her,” says Sonia.
“I hadn’t even realised you could over-feed a baby or a small child; I thought they stopped eating when they were full.
“Then, as Teighan got older, I was simply feeding her too much of the wrong food.
“I gave her ready meals, and always the same size portions as myself and the other children. On top of that, she wasn’t getting enough exercise.”
Shane’s mother, Hayley, 27, a housewife from Barking, Essex, had also been in denial about her son’s size.
Although doctors had told her in no uncertain terms that Shane had to lose weight, they tested him for a range of conditions including diabetes and genetic anomalies, which only confirmed her view there was a medical reason for his weight gain.
It was only at the end of last year, with all tests having come back negative — and noticing that her other children, Louis, five, and Tayla, three, were also gaining weight — that Hayley was finally forced to face the truth.
“I knew deep down that I was probably doing something wrong, but I had no idea what. I’ve always been big myself — I’m a size 16 to 18 — and their father is big, too, so I kept telling myself that being big was in our genes.”
Prior to the fat camp, Professor Gatelyinterviewed the parents about their children’s diet, exercise levels and lifestyles.
Over the course of the initial weekend, parents were put through a detailed educational programme — including learning how to read labels, make child-appropriate meals and what exercise their children should be doing — while the youngsters participated in a range of physical activities.
The camp doesn’t promote fad diets or gimmicks, just advice about eating less and exercising more.
At the end of the weekend, the families were sent away with a six-week plan to follow at home, and received weekly phone calls during which they were offered support and advice.
Hayley admits that not only was most of the information a revelation, but until the course, she hadn’t fully grasped the ramifications of her children’s weight.
Although it was Shane’s weight that had initially spurred her to get involved, she discovered Louis had a BMI of 22.6 — well into the obese range — and Tayla was also classified as overweight.
“Professor Gately said that if an adult had a BMI as high as Shane’s, the chances of things such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer wouldn’t even be open for debate,” says Hayley.
“I was gobsmacked. When Professor Gately went on to say it was nothing to with their metabolism and all to do with the amount of food they were eating versus the energy they were expending , I burst into tears. I can’t even begin to describe how ashamed I felt.”
Since the beginning of the course, Shane’s weight has dropped to eight-and- a-half stone and he’s now wearing clothes for a nine-year-old.
Louis has also lost almost a stone.
Even I’ve lost half a stone,’ says their mum Hayley.
This has been achieved by simple style and diet changes.
Instead of pizza and chips or chicken nuggets, Hayley prepares healthy meals from scratch — such as grilled chicken with vegetables. The children start their day with cereal or wholegrain toast and fruit, have sandwiches instead of school dinners and snack on fruit.
“I’ve also mastered portion size,” saysHayley.
“I used to think that because Shane was a big boy, he needed big portions. Now I weigh everything and have invested in smaller bowls so they eat less.”
Before fat camp, the children had never been swimming. Now, Hayley takes them to the pool at least once a week and sends them out to play on their bikes instead of watching TV.
Most importantly, she has set strict boundaries when it comes to their behaviour.
“I’d fallen into the cycle of feeling guilty about their size and giving them sweets to show them how much I loved them,” she says.
“And when they were being naughty and arguing, I’d bribe them with crisps and chocolate.”
Parents’ willingness to give in to their children’s demands was a problem for the Yadid family from Bushey, Hertfordshire, also on the fat camp.
Janine Yadid, 37, runs a children’s nursery where she prepares meals every day, and although she knows all about a balanced diet, her hard work was being undermined by her engineer husband, Rami — he simply gave their children Edden, five, and Tal, two, crisps and sweets whenever they wanted.
Although not as extreme as the situation faced by Sonia and Hayley, Janine’s daughter Edden was classified as obese, and Tal was already officially overweight.
“Edden wears you down with her demands until you feel you have no choice but to give in to her,” says Janine.
“I was more strict than my husband.
“He’d prefer to give them chocolate and see them happy than say no and make them cry. I was making the mistake of letting them snack on nuts, thinking they were healthy. In fact, the calorie content of nuts was far too high, so they were gaining weight.”
With Professor Gately’s help, Janine realised she and her husband needed to work on their communication so that they agreed on their children’s diet.
She also needed to be stricter at mealtimes. Another issue identified was that the children were asking for seconds and so ended up having similar-sized meals to their parents.
“All we needed to do was tweak our regime,” says Janine.
“Although there were a few tears at first, the children adapted to the new routine fairly well.”
Six weeks after the course, Edden’s BMI has gone down by 1.5 points to 18, which means she is now officially overweight, not obese.
Meanwhile, in Scotland, Teighan is proudly showing off her new, more streamlined figure.
The improvement is dramatic. Before fat camp she weighed 6st 2lb; she now weighs 4st 11lb.
“The hardest thing was explaining we had to follow the new diet because she was overweight,” says Sonia.
“I’d always tried to protect her, and when her friends called her fat I’d say she was beautiful as she was. I felt guilty telling Teighan the truth and she was very tearful about it, but I reassured her we’d get there together.”
The most important change Sonia has made, she says, is learning how to read food labels and count calories.
Teighan now sticks to a strict 1,200 calories a day and exercises on a trampoline every day. She is much fitter and no longer suffers from breathlessness.
“We did have a few problems at first — Teighan threw temper tantrums at mealtimes when she saw the vegetables on her plate and noticed she had smaller portions than everyone else,” says Sonia.
“But things are better now, and Teighan knows what she’s allowed to eat. I knew we’d reached a turning point the other day when she refused a piece of chocolate from a neighbour and asked for an apple instead.
“Its a shame Teighan has had to become aware of such issues as weight, calories and diet at such a young age, but needs must. She’s much happier and loves running around with her friends. The best thing of all is that I can now pick her up, as any mother should be able to do with their five-year-old.”
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