Feb. 22--Rebecca Velazquez has become a healthier cook and more discriminating shopper.
Soda is no longer welcome in her house, and colorful salads have become a staple at dinner.
She prepared green enchiladas for her family of five last Thursday. Instead of deep-frying the tortillas, she lightly browned them on the stove with a little bit of oil and finished them in the oven.
Her youngest two children were served a pair of enchiladas, topped "with just a little bit of cheese."
"They're eating a salad with that and a spoonful of rice," she said.
The menu adjustments are one of the lessons the family learned as part of the Keep Fit Club, a free program offered to overweight and obese 10- to 18-year-olds in the Texas Children's Health Plan, which provides medical care for 250,000 area children on Medicaid or CHIP.
Keep Fit Club families are taught how to make healthier choices during Saturday exercise and nutrition sessions.
The program is among several in the Houston area helping youngsters beat childhood obesity through exercise and healthy eating -- key goals of first lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative announced this month.
More than 12 percent of adolescents are obese according to recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research, putting them at risk for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.
The health plan's physicians refer about 100 children to the program every month.
Many of those youngsters have been diagnosed with diabetes, pre-diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or sleep apnea.
'More cost-effective'
"If they can get control of their weight now, it will be less likely they will have obesity-related complications later -- which costs the health plan more to treat, which costs the government more because they are supporting the health plan and it complicates things down the line," said Anne Marie Vollero, a health educator specialist who leads the Keep Fit program. "It is always more cost-effective to teach prevention."
Saturday's soccer game sent participants running across the grass at Hartman Park near the Houston Ship Channel. After a few minutes, most of the youngsters were red-cheeked and drenched with sweat. During the nutrition session, families discussed reading food labels.
Noting some differences
It only took a couple of weeks for Velazquez's children -- 12-year-old Rosa and 9-year-old Ryan -- to begin receiving compliments about slimming down and for their mother to notice other positive changes.
"I've seen them have more energy," she said. "They're just more outgoing. Now I don't have to fight with them to go outside and play."
Rosa, a seventh-grader at Beverly Hills Intermediate in Pasadena ISD, has learned to make better school lunch choices.
"I try not to pick pizza and French fries," she said.
Ryan, a third-grader at Laura Bush Elementary, confirmed that his mother cleared out "the bad stuff" at home.
"At first, I think I didn't like it, but in a couple of days I got used to it," he said. "I feel good because I can run better and I can do more stuff."
Juanita Alanis, a Texas Children's Health Plan employee who grew up on Houston's East End, volunteers on Saturdays as a Spanish translator.
"Moms are really getting into it and buying and trying new things. They have made a lot of changes," she said. "They are seeing their children change and drop the pounds."
Alanis said she doesn't remember so many overweight children when she was growing up in the neighborhood.
"We used to play outside all the time," she said. "Right now, the biggest concern for the parents is them being outside because of the violence."
The Keep Fit Club's lessons even paid an unexpected dividend for the volunteers -- Alanis lost eight pounds.
cindy.george@chron.com
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