(Republished with permission from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. This article originally ran in the Health & Fitness section on Monday, Feb. 27, 2006.)
By Harry Jackson Jr.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Stephanie Garcia walked to another first day of school.
Other first days at school weren’t always pleasant. Being an overweight child meant that school bullies called her fat.
After a while, she withdrew, not from school, but from her surroundings. She’d shrug her shoulders or shake her head instead of speaking. She’d walk with her head down in order to disappear – no eye contact, just sitting against the walls and reading, standing on the sidelines. Safety was in not being noticed. When the bullies didn’t notice her, they didn’t call her names.
This year, though, she walked in wearing a new blue skirt bought from a children’s store, not a plus-size store for adults. People noticed.
Her teachers had to do a double take. The Stephanie who’d left school the summer before was not the Stephanie who’d showed up for school this day. The new Stephanie was more than 30 pounds lighter.
Was she afraid? “Kind of.” Was she more confident? “Both,” Stephanie said. “I didn’t know if they were going to remember me or not.”
And what about the kids who had called her fat? “They moved.”
Did things change? “I have more friends, and I can run faster.”
She was no longer the wallflower who faded into the background to avoid attention. This Stephanie wanted to stay on the soccer field and work out in the gym and talk to friends.
Stephanie’s family says it’s sad that a person’s weight makes the difference between being popular or being bullied and ridiculed.
But for now, the 11-year-old fifth-grader is healthier and, most of all, happy.
How did it happen?
Stephanie lost her weight – and is still losing – working with the Family Lifestyle Intervention Program, called FLIP, sponsored by the Chesterfield YMCA and Washington University School of Medicine.
The program is designed to show family members how to get healthy together. That was the cornerstone of Stephanie’s success. She belonged to a family whose members wanted her to be happy.
The byproduct was that everyone in the family lost weight, including mom, big sister and little brother. Even dad is coming along now.
The beginning:
The effort began in March of last year, when Susan Garcia heard her daughter’s sadness about school. Mom blamed herself.
“I was the one who gave them food and let them get this way,” she said. “Food was love, so that’s what I gave them. I guess I was feeling so guilty, seeing how she was feeling.”
Food as love was an understatement. In their family, it had become a reward. Every Friday was pizza night, a reward for a week well done. Sundays also turned into fast-food night. Other meals were lavish and ample.
For everyone in the home, the pounds crept up. But Stephanie picked it up at a faster pace. At only 5-foot-1, she peaked at 169. And as some school bullies began to notice her, food became less fun and more comfort.
“She was just getting heavier and heavier. I was running out of sizes of clothes,” Susan said. “I didn’t want to go to Lane Bryant to shop for clothes. She was 9 years old.”
Taking control:
Susan saw what was happening and searched for an answer.
She found it at the YMCA in the FLIP program. It was run by a Washington University researcher and a dietitian-exercise instructor from the YMCA.
Because this was a research project, the family went through a rigorous interview process before being accepted.
The program took them through a process in which they got education, exercise and scrutiny. Stephanie and Scott were the focus of the program.
Once a week they visited the YMCA. The adults would be interviewed, and the children would play; then the children were interviewed while the adults played.
At home, the family used what they were learning to lower their caloric intake and to increase their activity.
FLIP required that both the children and parents be involved. No child would cooperate for the long term, the researchers say, if the parents didn’t set an example.
“This was a 36-week program,” said Nancy Trail, a dietitian at the YMCA who worked with the FLIP program. “We needed someone who was going to stick with it.”
“It was a big commitment,” Susan Garcia said. “I knew this wasn’t going to happen on its own.”
A family way:
Once the program began, the Garcias stripped their home of unhealthy food. Now, on the dining room table is a three-tiered tray of oranges and pears. On the kitchen wall hangs a bunch of bananas. The cupboard is filled with healthful snacks, such as baked corn chips.
Then the family began to eat according to the plan they had worked out with the dietitian. That meant smaller portions and weighing their food. They ate breakfast; they ate more fruits and vegetables.
Big sister Sarah was not in the program because she was into her teens. But instructors asked her to participate in playtime because Stephanie was the only girl of nine children in the program. Sarah was 15 then.
After watching her siblings drop pounds, Sarah got more interested in what they were doing.
“They were still eating things they liked, but they were actually losing weight,” Sarah said. “I said, ‘OK, I’m going to start doing that, too.’
“I’d told myself year after year that I’d lose this weight before school started, and I never did. Then I saw how it was working with (the rest of her family), and I decided to join in.”
The family also kept food journals. They recorded what they ate and when. One of the rules was that the children didn’t have to show it to their parents.
It takes a village:
The return to school brought it home for the family.
“When (Stephanie) got back to school, everyone was so amazed for her,” Susan said. “That really started her transformation. When she went back to school her confidence level went way up; she got so much praise.”
Sean agreed. “I think every year you go back to school, it’s an opportunity to reinvent yourself,” he said. “In that time in your life, it’s an opportunity. Stephanie did that. She came back, and she was a different person.”
The teachers at her school joined in cheering her on.
“Her PE coaches were amazed, and teachers couldn’t believe it. But they hadn’t seen her in three months,” Susan said. “For them, it was clearly a transformation.
“But not only did they see the physical transformation in her, but they saw the confidence level, the personal growth. She held her head up.”
Even Stephanie’s friends’ parents chimed in. When Stephanie ate dinner at a friend’s home, her best friend’s mom would call and ask how much chicken Stephanie could have, Susan Garcia said.
The YMCA also provided small incentives for the children. When children reached their goals, they got prizes, mainly those that enhanced physical playtime, such as soccer balls and T-shirts.
The hardest thing, says Stephanie, “was drinking a lot of water. I wasn’t used to drinking water. I was drinking soda. The easiest was measuring food.”
While the parents had to administer the program, Sean Garcia gives all the credit for the success to his wife, Susan.
“This has been a matriarchy,” he said. “The reason that we’ve all done so well is because how Sue led the way. She was the strong one who said no. She was the one who got them to the classes. She was the one who did the shopping. The kids did a lot of themselves, but without Sue, it wouldn’t have worked.”
Meals:
Meals used to be a lot of fast food because everyone was so busy.
The change for the family came more with the process than with a change in what the children ate – although there were some changes.
First, everything is measured. Mom serves meals on smaller plates. She prepares meals in the amounts that everyone is supposed to eat and tosses leftovers so that they can’t go back and nibble all night.
She got rid of unhealthful snacks and filled the pantry with more healthy snacks that were premeasured – baked chips, fruit, low-fat cheese.
So when the children want snacks, they may get a portion of baked corn chips, a sliced pear and bottled water rather than a sleeve of crackers and a soda.
Breakfast – For the children and Susan, it’s measured cereal, skim milk and a banana. Dad still has a traditional breakfast (bacon and eggs), but not in front of the kids.
Lunch – Susan packs lunches that include sandwiches with cheese, turkey or other low-calorie insides. Stephanie likes Miracle Whip, so she gets the light version spread thinly. They also get fruit and bottled water. Snacks may be the measured Pringles and another bottled water or flavored water with no calories.
Dinner – Food prepared with measured portions and a lot less red meat. They still have fun food. They had steak for the Super Bowl, but, for example, Stephanie got a 4-ounce portion. They also had snacks, but smaller measured portions so that no one ate half a bag of chips. Water was the beverage of choice.
Comfort food – They still have a pizza night, but that is infrequent, and now Dad brings one pizza home instead of two to four. They get one slice and water rather than soda. On a recent Friday, the family ate a meal of tuna salad, fruit and water that they had prepared together.
The losses over the 36-week program:
Stephanie, 11 – Lost 36 pounds in the FLIP program and 2 more since it ended in mid-December.
Scott, 9 – Lost about 20 pounds.
Sarah, 16 – Lost about 20 to 25.
Susan and Sean – Lost about 13 pounds each.
Name: The Garcia family
Ages: Sean, dad; Susan, mom; Sarah, daughter, 16; Stephanie, daughter, 11; Scott, son, 9.
Occupations: Dad works for Boeing; mom runs things; kids are students
Home: Wildwood
What they did: Got into a family fitness program to help one child drop some pounds. and the rest of the family ended up losing weight, too.
Quotable: “It might be hard, but keep trying. Because if you set your mind to it, you can do it.” – Stephanie Garcia, 11
Copyright 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.