Robert Siegel To Head Center for Better Health and Nutrition
Obesity levels in the United States are advancing to the point where, for the first time, children could have a shorter life expectancy than the generation before them.
Complications, including hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes - once considered adult diseases - are now being found in obese children. It's a trend that threatens to shorten life expectancy for the first time in the modern era.
To combat this looming health issue, Cincinnati Children's has created the Center for Better Health and Nutrition and recruited Robert Siegel, MD, as medical director.
"Obesity rates have tripled in the last 30 years," says Siegel. "In one study we did, the results show that 44 percent of kids are overweight or obese by the time they are 8 to 10 years old. You can't help but see that obesity is an epidemic."
The new Center for Better Health and Nutrition will be a comprehensive obesity treatment, management and prevention arm of the Heart Institute. Current clinics, including the Comprehensive Weight Management program, HealthWorks! and the Abnormal Weight Gain clinic will fall under the umbrella of the new center.
Siegel says the center's goal covers three areas: clinical, research and education.
The first step is to make the center and its programs more accessible to the community. Within the next year, Siegel plans to open clinics at Liberty Campus, Anderson and Harrison, followed by Northern Kentucky, Fairfield and Mason. Each neighborhood location will have a Better Health and Nutrition physician or nurse practitioner, dietician and exercise physiologist.
"This is a special situation for Cincinnati Children's and the community," Siegel said. "Very few places have a hold on a community this large, and that gives us an opportunity to make a huge impact and also learn from what we are doing."
Initially the center will concentrate on obesity and overweight management, but Siegel hopes to quickly move more toward prevention, work with sports medicine and work for better nutrition throughout the community.
While there is no one exact reason why obesity rates have tripled in the last 30 years, Siegel thinks it's the perfect storm of changes in diet, lifestyle, activity levels and parenting.
"Kids have fewer meals at home and are eating more meals at schools,” he says. “The quality of our food has changed in the last 30 years. There's more fast-food. People walk less and drive more. There's less physical education in schools because of budget cuts. So we have this really toxic environment.”
Another goal of the center is to work with pediatricians who are on the front line of the obesity epidemic. That means encouraging body mass index (BMI) checks on all kids, ages 3 years and up, at wellness checks, and also championing thorough dietary history evaluations.
The key is to identify at-risk kids early for counseling or referral.
"The vision of the Heart Institute at Cincinnati Children's is concerned about all aspects of heart disease," Siegel says. "Even though obesity is not a big heart problem in most children, those early habits are established young, and things like high cholesterol and lipid dysfunction are already starting in kids. So ultimately it leads to heart disease.
"We are taking a very big picture view of heart disease in America."
About Robert Siegel
Robert Siegel, MD, comes to Cincinnati Children’s from St. Elizabeth Medical Center, where he has been the medical director of St Luke Pediatric Care Centers and St. Luke Hospital since 1994.
His research interests include pediatric obesity, specifically low-carb diets. His goal is to develop the Center for Better Health and Nutrition into a nationally recognized center for excellence in obesity management, clinical obesity research and education and clinical services for health and activity.
Education
MD: New York University School of Medicine, 1984
Residency: Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children's, 1984-1987
Fellowship: Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Cincinnati Children's, 1991-1992
Career Highlights
Medical director: Cincinnati Pediatric Research Group, 1996-present
Medical director: Northern Kentucky Children's Advocacy Center, Bellevue, Kentucky, 1994-present
Clinical and Research Interests:
Prevention and treatment of obesity
