Through a non-diet program, children learn skills and behaviors to manage their weight.
Kalina Brookfield
Contributing journalist
Kalina Brookfield, contributing photographer
For 27 years, Bright Bodies at Yale has been fighting childhood obesity in the New Haven community through a comprehensive healthy lifestyle program.
THE Luminous Body Programwhich organizes several sessions of 10 to 12 weeks each year, involves both children and their families. The program uses the Smart Moves weight management program, an approach to weight loss prioritizing knowledge-based behavior change over diet.
“We want to teach kids how to make permanent, healthy lifestyle changes,” said Mary Savoye-DeSanti, founder of the Bright Bodies program and author of the Smart Moves program. “We really respect where each family comes from and work with the resources they have.”
The Smart Moves program includes four elements: nutrition education, behavior modification, physical activity and parental support. Children enrolled in the program meet twice a week to exercise and attend classes. When appropriate, caregivers are encouraged to attend classes with their children and parenting support groups.
The program’s non-diet approach to weight management focuses on teaching skills and behaviors that enable children to develop healthy habits and make better food choices in all situations. Nutrition classes are taught with the understanding that different families have different resources and foods – priority is placed on flexibility and improvement rather than perfection.
“There’s a lot of parental support, which is great,” said Mark Ceneri, whose son is in the program. “It’s hard enough raising kids anyway, and this is another layer that goes into that complexity. It’s nice to share this with other parents and share ideas and strategies with other people.
The last meeting last year was divided into two parts: for the physical activity part, the children played classic physical education games, such as tag or sharks and minnows. In the nutritional education part, children and caregivers learned to read and interpret nutritional labels.
The children were excited to run with their peers and equally excited to answer questions during class, with no shortage of hands raised to answer each question.
Caregivers reported that the program had a positive impact on their own parenting styles and their children’s approaches to food and healthy eating.
“He’s a lot more aware of what he’s eating and what’s in what he’s eating,” said Willian Whitehead, describing his 11-year-old grandson in the program. “He loves it. He’s the one who blames me for being on time to get here. He appreciates it enormously.
Meetings are held at the medical center located at 1 Long Wharf Drive.