You’ve probably heard: One in three children in the U.S. is obese. It’s the issue of
our time, and it seems to be getting worse. Learn what one unconventional school
in South Carolina is doing to fight the epidemic…one child at a time.
“Obese” is not the word that should first come to mind when we think of the nation’s young people. Vivacious might be a good one. Creative, intelligent, and optimistic wouldn’t be bad, either. And yet, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for 12.5 million young people in the U.S., “obese” defines them. When you consider how it limits the potential of so many kids, isolates them, and shortens their lives, you can see why childhood obesity gets so much ink these days. And yet, all the “awareness” in the world isn’t solving the problem, notes Dr. David Katz.
“Childhood obesity is the issue of our time,” says Dr. David Katz, a leading international authority on nutrition, weight management, and the prevention of chronic disease. “And while it’s too crucial a topic not to talk about, all the scary statistics haven’t been able to move the needle on this national epidemic. Grassroots action—taking one child at a time and helping him unlearn the patterns that led to his weight gain—is the only thing that works.”
MindStream Academy, for which Dr. Katz serves as senior medical advisor, is a case in point. A full-service boarding school on a pristine 43-acre horse farm in South Carolina, it helps teens and tweens who want to get healthy and fit, lose weight, take control of their lives, and build self-esteem.
It offers a positive, safe, and caring natural environment in which teens learn proven life skills that allow them to handle the stress and triggers that lead to unhealthy habits. In addition to working with a fully accredited middle school and high school curriculum, students get hands-on intensive and comprehensive health coaching, including nutrition, fitness, and behavioral interventions.
“MindStream Academy operates on the premise that being overweight isn’t just a physical issue,” says Dr. Katz. “It’s not just about eating more healthfully and exercising. It’s also about overcoming negative emotions, low self-esteem, social anxiety, and more. All of these factors play into the toxic cycle that leads to excess weight. That’s why MindStream takes the unusual approach of focusing not just on weight loss but on the ‘whole child.’ We take into account the mind, body, and spirit.”
In other words, MindStream provides its students with the skills and tools they need for a lifetime of healthy and happy living. Read on to learn more about its approach:
MindStream teaches sustainability instead of extremes. There is an avalanche of weight loss advice out there today promising quick results. However attractive these “quick-fix” programs may seem to desperate teens, most are either unrealistic for the average person or require unhealthful extremes. That’s why MindStream teaches its students an organic, sustainable way to lose weight by changing their lifestyles. And it’s why the program requires a semester minimum because it usually takes four months for the behavioral changes to stick.
“MindStream does not promote public weigh-ins, extreme calorie counting/restricting, or aggressive fitness regimens,” notes Dr. Katz. “My perspective on any challenging problem—and obesity certainly makes that list—is that we must both cultivate will and pave the way. Will power can start us moving forward, but only skill power will get us over the finish line. In that spirit, MindStream students learn to better manage stress. They learn to be mindful, to garden, to cook fresh wholesome and delicious foods, to enjoy moving their bodies (perhaps for the first time), and to appreciate the great outdoors—overall becoming more grounded to the earth. These are all the raw materials for physical, emotional, and social well-being.
“The causes of epidemic obesity are obvious and simple—we eat too much of all the wrong things, and do too little,” he adds. “The solutions are equally obvious and simple—we need to eat less and better stuff, and be more active. At MindStream there is nothing extreme about what we are doing. We just bring kids back to the basics. They put down their electronics, develop a relationship with themselves, their bodies, and the world around them, and start setting and achieving goals.
“Feet, forks, and fingers are the master levels of medical destiny for not just thousands, or tens of thousands on any one occasion, but the medical destiny of millions upon millions, year after year. We have known, but we have not managed to care. At least, not deeply enough to turn what we know into what we routinely do.”
It takes kids out of the virtual world and into the natural world. The way kids live these days is unnatural in the most literal sense of the word. It sets them up to become obese. It starts at school where physical education has been severely reduced or cut completely and where healthy food options lose out to pizza and soft drinks. After school, fast food and huge portion sizes abound. And kids spend long hours in front of the computer, playing video games, or watching TV rather than outdoors in physical activity.
“Throughout most of human history, calories have been scarce and hard to get, and physical activity has been unavoidable,” says Dr. Katz. “We applied our ingenuity to these problems and solved them. For most Americans, today’s food supply is readily available. We no longer have to spend energy hunting and gathering to put dinner on the table. We have devised technology that has made physical exertion not merely discretionary, but downright elusive.
“Today’s young people are disconnected from the natural world,” he continues. “MindStream unplugs their video games and computers, turns off the TV, and gets them moving. It gets their hands in the earth and teaches them a healthier way to relate to food. Students spend huge parts of their days breathing fresh air via fitness clinics held outdoors, walking around the campus lake, working with horses, taking lengthy bike rides. As they get back to nature, and to a more natural way of living, their minds, spirits, and bodies slowly become healthier.”
It provides a safe haven for positive change. Many obese teens come from negative school environments where they’re bullied and ostracized by their fellow students. They feel trapped by their weight physically, and those feelings lead them to be trapped socially as well. They often turn to a solitary, sedentary lifestyle where food is a comfort. MindStream takes them out of the world where they learned and developed harmful patterns so they can relearn healthier ones.
“Enrolling in MindStream is like pushing the pause button on a world that’s overwhelming you,” says Dr. Katz. “It gives teens the luxury of immersing themselves in a new way of life. Most of the food options we encounter in most places we go come in bags, boxes, bottles, jars, and cans—not peels. To choose well among these options requires a ‘how to’ skill set: how to read a nutrition facts panel; how to size up an ingredient list; how to see past banner ads and marketing hype to the truth; how to tell which of the dozens of choices in any food category from beans to breakfast cereal is worse for you, better for you, best for you.
“At MindStream, students have the time and the support they need to develop these life skills that will help them make healthy living sustainable. And they’re with peers who know exactly how bad it feels to be young and overweight. You can tell a young person to eat better and exercise, but if he’s in an environment that won’t allow him to practice these new skills until they become habits, it’s just wasted words.”
It helps teens address what’s eating them (psychologically, that is). Being overweight comes with its own psychological and social stresses. So does losing weight. Consider that when young people have bariatric surgery and experience dramatic weight loss, it isn’t uncommon for them to have an existential crisis. They realize they’re still the same person—with the same self-esteem issues, the same unhealthy relationship with food, the same stresses—they’re just smaller. If they can’t deal with the mental and emotional side of weight loss, they’ll never sustain it.
Neurobiofeedback is one tool MindStream uses to help them deal with stress. As part of MindStream’s comprehensive counseling (clinical, therapeutic) program, it retrains abnormal brainwave patterns through a non-invasive, psychotherapeutic, and behavioral technique. Basically, students learn self-regulation exercises designed to keep the psychological, neurological, and biological mind-body connection in harmony.
“We’ve found that this process helps teens learn to regulate dysfunction in their brains that can lead to compulsive, anxious, and depressive overeating behaviors,” explains Dr. Katz. “Neurobiofeedback is a fun, solution-focused, and non-threatening way for MindStream students to get their minds right, so to speak, at the same time they’re getting their bodies back on track.”
It uses equine-assisted psychotherapy to break down defenses and teach kids valuable new skills. Specially trained staff members set up activities involving horses that require participants to use creative thinking, non-verbal communication, and leadership skills to accomplish a task. Equine-assisted therapy is a fun, nonthreatening way for teens to develop problem-solving skills, resourcefulness, personal accountability, improved self-esteem, and more. And of course, they gain a new friend who loves them unconditionally.
“Horses can reach kids that no one else can,” says Dr. Katz. “We had one student who was depressed and possibly even suicidal until he began working with Louie, one of MindStream’s horses. The horse gave him a sense of purpose, and, ultimately, he ended up losing over a hundred pounds.”
It gives them tasks that lead to confidence and self-esteem. Overweight young people face bullying, name-calling, and endless small slights, both intentional and unintentional. In addition they are constantly bombarded with messages in magazines, television shows, ads, and movies that thinner is better and that it’s okay to make fun of and marginalize overweight and obese people. All of this takes a serious toll on their self-image. It’s MindStream’s job to build them back up—and that starts with giving them responsibilities that create a sense of accomplishment and purpose.
“Besides holding teens to high academic standards, leaders expect them to work in the ‘soul garden’ growing fresh vegetables,” notes Dr. Katz. “They harvest fresh plant food ingredients for the kitchen and work hands-on with MindStream chefs to prepare simple, delicious, natural, healthy meals. And they’re also responsible for feeding, caring for, and exercising the horses in the equine therapy program.
“If you don’t believe that you can make changes in your life, you’re probably not going to try,” he adds. “A lack of confidence causes you to stall out before you even begin. The work kids do at MindStream corrects that confidence deficit. When a teen sees that she is making progress in communicating with a horse and doing a good job as a caretaker or successfully prepares a delicious but healthy meal, her confidence grows…and she becomes more open to personal change.”
MindStream makes it a family affair. Young people cannot sustain weight loss if they do not have the support of their family. It is extremely difficult for anyone to continue making weight loss progress when those around them don’t or won’t make healthy living a priority. That’s why students’ families participate in the program through weekly counseling sessions via Skype, nutrition education, and weekend workshops.
“Let’s face it: It’s one thing to lose weight when you’re in a protected environment surrounded by professionals whose only job is to give you the skills to help you succeed,” says Dr. Katz. “It’s something else entirely to walk out of that haven into the real world and be able to continue living those changes. That’s why families have to change, too. And by doing so, we could eliminate 80 percent of all heart disease and strokes; 90 percent of all diabetes; and as much as 60 percent of all cancer. If they’re not part of the solution, they’re part of the problem. They must become a support system to assist the teen in his struggle to control his feelings, behavior, and weight.”
“Perhaps the most significant change that our students achieve is that they arrive feeling despondent and they leave feeling like new people,” says Dr. Katz. “The changes that are made here are not skin deep. There are tremendous shifts in personal responsibility, self-esteem, healthy risk taking, and the students also develop a sense of hope through accomplishing tremendous goals.
“A young person who comes here doesn’t just achieve a change in his physical form,” he adds. “The way he relates to his own emotions, his environment, and the people around him is transformed forever. And what he learns at MindStream will be with him for the rest of his life.”
About Dr. David Katz:
As one of the leading international authorities on nutrition, weight management, and the prevention of chronic disease, Dr. David Katz is in the trenches of the war against childhood obesity. In fact, he warned us many years ago that today’s younger generation will not live as long or as healthfully as their parents. Dr. Katz is also a prolific author, having published over 120 scientific papers, numerous textbook chapters, nearly a thousand newspaper columns, and a dozen books to date. In 2009 he was nominated for the position of U.S. Surgeon General to the Obama Administration by the American College of Physicians, the American College of Preventive Medicine, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, among other national and international health organizations. He is also the founding director of Yale University Prevention Research Center, director and founder of Integrative Medicine Center at Griffin Hospital, president of Turn the Tide Foundation, Inc., and editor-in-chief of the Childhood Obesity journal.
About MindStream Academy:
MindStream Academy is a full-service boarding school on a pristine 43-acre horse farm in South Carolina for teens and tweens who want to get healthy, fit, lose weight, take control of their lives, build self-esteem, and pursue a personal passion.
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