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Personal Health: 104 Teenagers Who Are Role Models for Weight Loss |
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From New York Times: The problem is undeniable: American children, and especially American teenagers, are fatter than ever. The prevalence of teenage obesity has tripled in the last 30 years, according to Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, the author of "I'm, Like, So Fat." Fifteen percent of teenage girls and boys are overweight, and another 15 percent to 20 percent are at risk of joining them. Furthermore, wrote Dr. Neumark-Sztainer, who studies teenage eating behaviors at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, dieting has been found to lead to weight gain among teenagers, and more than half of teenage girls and nearly a third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight-control behaviors, like skipping meals, smoking cigarettes, vomiting or taking laxatives. Enter Anne M. Fletcher, author of the newly published "Weight Loss Confidential," a study of how 104 overweight preteens and teenagers --- 41 boys and 63 girls --- lost significant amounts of weight and maintained their losses for two years or longer. They succeeded only after coming to terms with their self-destructive eating habits and sedentary ways, and making permanent changes in how they deal with food and how they move their bodies.
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