Male: According to the enlightened pediatric endocrinologists that I know particularly Henry Anhalt, he thinks the old man type-2 diabetes in children might be the major form of diabetes children, so we used to confer to the one called juvenile diabetes. They do not make insulin and now we get the obese version where they make insulin. It is as a resistance from the obesity and it is almost and epidemic, and I know you are into controlling the weight, which is truthfully controlling this new epidemic of type 2 diabetes.
Female: Well, it is not only that I need to control the weight, I want to like, bypass the parent as best I can and teach the child how important it is to eat right. It is not that they can never can go without a piece of chocolate. I want them to understand that eating right does not only mean—eating right means they are going to feel good inside, they are going to be better students, they are going to have better concentration, they will be better athletes, they will run faster and jump higher. It is going to give them confidence. Nothing bad happens from eating right.
Male: But resistance to the insulin is matched by the resistance to lose weight of the fatness of the family unit.
Female: That is exactly right.
Male: So, it is a formula. So, the only hope in your kind of feel is get the family to lose weight.
Female: That is exactly right. We have more luck with teenagers. What I mean by luck is—
Male: Success.
Female: No, what I mean is this, a teenager is more active and physically able to bypass the parents. What do I mean? Someone who is 15 years old are ready to make their own their salad. They can throw in a hamburger into the oven. They can do more for themselves. They are not driving to the supermarket yet, but they are able to tell the parent exactly what they would like, and if they are not going to make it, they can make it themselves.
Male: They also want a date, the want the result…
Female: That is exactly right. And so, they are more independent. They know a little bit more of what they want and how to get there. And so, therefore, we can deal with them very successfully. I cannot seat with a 10-year-old child and say to them, you know, how much fish did you have? They do not know. How did your mommy make it, do you know if she used oil or did she put any salt in the fish? I do not know. You see, there, we have to deal with the parent. I have to reach out to the parent, and I am very candid with the parents.
I tell them, if you do not do something about it now, when your kids start DBT at 12, at 13, socialization age, one day behind closed doors, you and your husband are going to have a very good cry because you are going to regret this for the rest of your life and your child will resent you for the rest of her life. And that is a fact. And I believe that in my heart, the longer a kid stays heavy, the worse the problem is going to become even if he does not have any insulin resistance yet or anything like that. Socialization is very important. It is everything when you are 13 or 14 years old, you cannot ever imagine you are going to be 20. You want to be happy now. You want to be slim, you want to be energetic, you want to have girlfriends, and you want to have boyfriends. You do not care really about anything else.
And so, I tell the parents—lightning should strike me how I had a mom who came to my program. I would say about a year ago, a little over a year ago, she was very, very over weight, and she was the husband of a very well known physician in the area, in the Ocean Town. I said to her, what were you here today? First is last year, the year before? Her daughter said to her, innocently, she asked her mother why she was the fattest mom at the bus stop.
And she started to cry. And I said, listen, I am glad you are here. whatever it took, I am glad you are here. Okay? It is better to be the fattest mom at the bus stop who stands a chance of getting slim than to keep going in the way you are, develop a heart attack and then your daughter does not have any mom at all.
Male: Can you, at that first interview almost predict pretty accurately who is going to do it?
Female: Yes, I think so. I think I can, yes.
Male: Because I usually say that if there was a problem, I am going to be successful and get the kid whatever it is because I have motivated parents. They make me look good because whatever I tell them to go, I do, they are going to do.
Female: You are right on.
Male: So the parents make me look good.
Female: Yes, I always can tell. You are right about that. You are right about that. I mean, listen, there are a few surprises along the way but most of the time, I can tell if I have a parent—you know, sometimes parents, they will throw me a ton of money and then all their stop and trips, they drop their off to see—well, they are going around on a couple to some area and they leave us to be canceling a 10-year-old kid. Right?
I know the kind of parent I am dealing with. They think that just by throwing money at me, the problem is going to go away. Then you have the parents who call me religiously, who want us help them plan their child’s day. I have even written letters—you know, because most schools today, some schools have a lunch program and you cannot bring your own lunch. A lot of the religious schools are like that. I will have parents who are saying, Laurie, listen, so and so is doing right. She really is happy now. Can you write a letter to the school, just explaining what is going on, how much success she has had and how important it is to keep that going…
Male: And what happens to the school when you do that?
Female: I have never ones had a school say, it is not okay for so and so’s child to bring your own stuff into school. They have always made an exception. Oh, I have never had a negative comment.
Male: The Department of Health in New York City goes out of the way to help us heal that kind of problems with schools and whatnot. In fact, they are nervous because if they do not react at certain way, we could pick up a fall, and they…
Female: That is exactly right. Those are the kind of parents that I love dealing with even if some of those parents are over weight themselves. They see the mistake, they are trying to correct it, they are actively involved in their son or their daughter’s well being, and those are the ones who are always successful.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services