COMMENTARY : A Missed Message

The ads read, “They never met a hot dog they didn’t like.”

Well, neither have I--nor have the hundreds of obese kids I have worked with in clinics at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago and Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

With this in mind, I went to see the new movie “Heavyweights.” It is surely a sign of the times that a major motion picture company has produced a film about obese children. I needed to know just what kind of message this film is sending to kids, fat or skinny.

Having worked with obese children for more than eight years, I know how their environment can affect them and how sensitive they are to a society that appears to be obsessed with thinness and fitness.

I came out of the theater a little confused. I think the premise was that overweight children are capable of taking personal responsibility for their lives and achieving whatever they desire, including self-esteem and a better body. But I am not sure.

The main thing I got out of the film was that the message, or messages, were mixed.

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The story is about a fat camp where an adult role model is obese and all the kids come to camp with hidden caches of candy. This comfortable and apparently acceptable routine is disturbed when a new director takes over. He is a maniacal fitness expert and immediately starts to “whip the kids into shape,” using exercise as an instrument of terror.

Fitness was the bad guy and Pat, the obese camp counselor, was the good guy.

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I don’t think that is a good message because exercise is probably more important than diet in the long run. Sure, a steady diet of junk food is going to expand those fat cells more rapidly than a healthy diet, but the key is exercise. Even if you don’t lose pounds, you will lose inches. I think that bothered me the most--exercise as evil.

Gerry, the little kid hero, has a family that sends mixed messages too. On one hand they want to help him out by sending him to a fat camp, but when he calls to complain about the exercise monster, his dad is unsympathetic. Even on Parents’ Day, Gerry’s dad says in an aside to Mom, “He hasn’t lost a pound.”

The kids who succeeded in clinics where I have worked always had some kind of family support. Some obese kids might be able to change habits and lose weight, but long-term success depends on family commitment. I guess the camp adults count as such, but only in a temporary sense.

“Heavyweights” minimizes the difficulty of losing weight and maintaining that loss. It was too easy for the camp kids to take charge of their lives once they made the commitment. Any parent whose child has struggled with weight loss knows how heartbreaking it can be.

A pig-out party, complete with fireworks and folks pouring chocolate in their faces leads the camp counselor to talk to the kids the next morning about taking personal responsibility. A few scenes are devoted to exercise and a nutrition class, but Gerry’s personal triumph has nothing to do with weight loss or fitness. Instead, he is the winner of a Go-Kart race. His competitor is a kid from another camp where everyone is fit.

Once again, fitness is the bad guy.

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It seems to me that “Heavyweights” trivializes the plight of obese children. Maybe as a health professional who has seen too many sad kids with weight problems, I am overly concerned with the image the film is presenting.

The kids in the audience laughed a lot, especially when the kids on screen made the grown-ups look foolish. I think they would have laughed anyway, even if the kids on screen were skinny. The mixed messages, like the premise of personal responsibility, may have gone over their heads. I don’t know.

One thing I do know: There was not an overweight kid in the audience.

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Our Overweight Kids: The Facts

* Lack of physical activity is considered the single biggest factor in rising childhood obesity rates.

* Since 1980 there has been a 6% increase in childhood obesity rates, with 21% of teen-agers considered significantly overweight.

* A survey conducted between 1988 and 1991 of children 9 to 12 found that one in five preteens in the United States is overweight--20% of boys and 22% of girls. In contrast, the percentage of overweight children of comparable ages in the 1970s was about 15% for both groups.

* Obese children have elevated blood pressure levels, higher total cholesterol levels and decreased amounts of the so-called good high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.

* Only 37% of high school students get at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise three or more times a week.

Source: C. Everett Koop Foundation’s “Weighing In for America’s Health--Elevating Healthy Weight and Physical Fitness as a National Priority” report.