Page 58 - Today's Dietitian (March 2020)

Health Matters

The Notre Dame team collaborated
with the Centre for Nutritional Recovery
and Education (CREN), a not-for-
profit, nongovernmental nutritional
clinic in São Paulo, Brazil, where
patients participate in a two-year
interdisciplinary treatment program
including family counseling, nutrition
workshops, and various physical
activities. Researchers analyzed the
medical records and psychological
assessments of 1,541 children who
participated in the program.
The study’s key takeaway points to
the significant impact parents and
guardians have on their child’s health
when it comes to nutrition. Strong
family dynamics, such as concern for
behavior and treatment and a sense
of protectiveness for the child, led to
improved outcomes of nutritional inter-
ventions. A lack of authority, however,
led to minimal changes in results.
“This is quantitative evidence of the
success and failure of interactions as
they relate to the characteristics and
interactions between the child and the
parent or guardian,” Chawla says.
The study also highlights the need
for clinics to expand their views
Psychological Factors Linked on patient populations. For exam-
ple, while treatment programs that
incorporate development of interper-
to Childhood Obesity sonal relationship—familial and oth-
erwise—may improve outcomes of
T he World Health Organiza- with their weight, such as loneliness, treatment plan may not have the same
nutritional interventions, the same
tion has estimated that more
anxiety, and shyness, combined with
result for children experiencing loneli-
than 340 million children
similar characteristics of their parents
ness coupled with anxiety.
and adolescents aged 5–19
“For the group without anxiety,
affect outcomes of nutritional
are overweight or obese, and or guardians and family dynamics this makes sense when you
the epidemic has been linked to more intervention. consider a treatment plan focused
deaths worldwide than those caused What they found was a “network effect,” on strengthening a child’s social
by being underweight. suggesting a personalized, comprehen- circle and address issues stemming
The Centers for Disease Control and sive approach to treatment could improve from loneliness, such as poor social
Prevention recently reported an esti- results of nutritional interventions. network, bullying, or self-imposed
mated 1 in 5 children in the United “Psychological characteristics isolation,” says Gisela M.B. Solymos,
States, aged 12–18, are living with pre- clearly have interactional effects,” says PhD, a coauthor of the study, former
diabetes—increasing their risk of devel- Nitesh Chawla, PhD, the Frank M. Frei- general manager of CREN, and
oping type 2 diabetes as well as chronic mann Professor of Computer Science former guest scholar at the Kellogg
kidney disease, heart disease, and stroke. and Engineering at Notre Dame, direc- Institute for International Studies
Efforts to stem the crisis have led tor of the Center for Network and Data at Notre Dame and at the Center
clinicians and health professionals Science, and a lead author of the study. for Network and Data Science. “But
to examine both the nutritional and “We can no longer simply view them patients feeling loneliness and anxiety
psychological factors of childhood as individualized risk factors to be actually showed minimal changes to
obesity. In a new study led by the assessed. We need to account for the nutritional interventions, and may be
University of Notre Dame, researchers specific characteristics for each child, more likely to benefit from additional
examined how various psychological viewing them as a holistic set for which services at clinics like CREN.”
characteristics of children struggling to plan treatment.” SOURCE: UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

58 TODAY’S DIETITIAN • MARCH 2020