David Stonehouse Science & Health

Coping with the frustrations of teen obesity

An Ottawa father and his daughter are forming a support group to help parents and obese teenage girls find practical solutions to weight problems

By David Stonehouse

For Murray Dineen, there was a sense of helplessness, of not knowing where to turn to help his teenage daughter deal with her obesity.

There was frustration, too, as obesity has become something of a media obsession lately, with research breakthroughs and startling statistics commanding magazine covers and big bold newspaper headlines.

Frustration arose because despite all the attention, no one seemed to be helping the people directly touched by the problem. He wanted some practical advice on how to support his Emily, and he wanted something for her beyond the myriad of typical dieting plans -- something that could help her understand and cope.

Finding nothing, he decided to launch an obesity support group for teenage girls and their parents.

"There is a lot of research going on, there is a lot of concern being expressed in the papers. But something practical needs to be done with it," says Mr. Dineen, a University of Ottawa professor. "I don't think that has trickled down yet to the street."

He has attracted the help of Dr. Gary Goldfield, a leading researcher in childhood obesity at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, as well as the support of the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre. He is seeking private and government funding for the group.

Its first organizational and information meeting will take place at the centre on Wednesday, marking the beginning of what Mr. Dineen believes is one of the first such support groups in the country.

He hopes there will be a series of weekly meetings for children and others for their parents.

Emily Dineen, 14, welcomes the idea and finds it particularly appealing that the parents and children will be meeting in separate rooms.

"People talk about other diseases, things like that, but they don't really talk about being overweight. And I think it would be nice if a whole bunch of people got together and talked about it, and didn't really feel self-conscious because we are all the same," says the Hillcrest High School Grade 9 student.

"Everybody is talking about the problems of being overweight but they are not talking to the people who are overweight to see if they need help, or someone to talk to, or someone just to hang out with who will accept them."

Emily, who has been at the top of her height and weight all her life, has been both accepted and shunned by classmates during her journeys through different schools. She seems, at some level at least, to have accepted her obesity but would still like the support and help of others.

"I think almost every overweight girl or boy's dream is to look like the average or perfect," she says. "But I also think being my weight sort of gives me more sensitivity and it has developed my character more."

Still, she says she tries to eat healthy food and to exercise, while her father sees temptation around her with realities like pop and chip vending machines in school hallways.

Mr. Dineen also finds it difficult to motivate his daughter to exercise, even when he offers to do it with her. Frustration over this helped spur the effort to launch the support group. Emily, however, usually views those encouragements by her father as aggravations.

"I guess," she says, "he was on my back a lot."

For his part, he felt her weight was getting out of hand and he needed to help. "I think for a lot of parents, it becomes a problem that is almost too big for them to handle, and I suspect there are a lot of parents who just give up and say, 'This child is old enough --they have to look after themselves.' But I think it is at that time when a child needs a lot of parental support and parental encouragement," he says.

"A lot of parents are frankly embarrassed about the shape that their child is in. I know myself, I've had people say to me, 'Where'd you go wrong? What did you do wrong?' that type of thing, blaming me. Maybe there is some responsibility that I haven't been keeping up," he says.

"But for my child, it is a combination probably of genetics and behaviour. I don't necessarily need somebody to say to me I've made a mistake somewhere along the line. Instead, what I need to do is talk with other parents and say something has happened here and I need to acknowledge that."

Mr. Dineen and others now involved in launching this effort decided against a co-ed group to begin with, though he hopes he will be able to find the funding to start a separate group for teenage boys.

While the details of the support meetings are still being worked out, he sees them as focused on helping teens and parents address the emotional, psychological and social problems that come with obesity, rather than pushing diets and weight loss.

"As we are being reminded constantly, a lot of the population is overweight. You and I both know that people who are overweight are ashamed of that fact. And that shame can feed on them and create as much of a problem as being overweight itself," he says.

"I don't know if I am correct in saying this or not, but I think of it as one of the last great prejudices that we hold against people without thinking them through. And like any prejudice, it can rack up a lot of pain in people."