Fuel Up to Play 60

The fight to address the problem of Childhood Obesity has lost a battle in South Florida. Two major insurance companies that care for children have decided to no longer cover nutrition counseling for obesity and obesity related disease for children. This is of significant concern for me as I am well aware that families may not seek help if they are required to pay for services out of pocket. It seems that we are all talking about Childhood Obesity and how to treat and reverse this problem but I do not see funding for it. Our practice has achieved good outcomes for the families referred to us. Check out the February edition of Boca Magazine http://www.bocamag.com/ page 132-139, The Weight of a Generation by Emily Moorhouse. Emily highlighted two families that have been counseled in our office. Bobby is a great success story. His insurance company did pay for his visits. The reward was that he was able to get off expensive high blood pressure medication. Bobby’s insurance company is one of the ones that will no longer pay for him to receive further nutritional counseling, which I may add, is pretty cheap compared to high blood pressure medication. The improvement in Bobby’s mental and physical health is immeasurable. If only we can convince insurance companies to pay for this life saving service we can help more children and families.
The Family Nutrition Center has found another way to reach children. I am very excited to announce that our Foundation has been awarded three grants from the Fuel Up to Play 60 Program. This is a wonderful program developed by the NFL and the National Dairy Council to help combat childhood obesity through an education program centered on physical and nutrition education. The best part of this program is that it is directed by the children/teens from the selected schools. I am so proud that we have been selected to work with three schools in Broward County: Monarch High School, Coconut Creek High School, and Margate Elementary School. The Florida Dairy Council hosted a meeting of all the selected schools and the Education and Health professionals that will be working with this program. After meeting my teams, I can see they are as committed as I to working to combat child obesity. I would like to thank the Dairy Council for their support. I will keep you posted on the work that we are doing. Until then let’s be good role models for children by eating healthy and engaging in regular exercise.

Regards, Lucille