You Can Fix The Fat From Childhood promotes family-focused comprehensive knowledge and behaviors with an eye toward preventing early disability and death from heart disease. Heart disease risk factors "show" in early childhood. Learning to adopt healthy lifestyles - that's prevention! Health doesn't come in a bottle, and you cannot buy it in a drug store or at the supermarket! You have to work at it. Slim, trim, toned, and fit - desired "look" not easy but achievable! Decide to tackle the fat: prevent it, control it, exercise it. We can fix the fat! Dr. Shiriki Kumanyika, associate dean at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said on the acclaimed HBO special, "The weight of the nation is out of control, but we can fix that" YOU CAN FIX THE FAT FROM CHILDHOOD & Other Heart Disease Risks, Too By Gerald S. Berenson NancyKay Sullivan Wessman AuthorHouse Copyright © 2012 Gerald S. Berenson, MD All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4772-5785-2 Contents Preface............................................................................xiiiIntroduction.......................................................................xvChapter One The Bogalusa Heart Study..............................................1Chapter Two Heart disease starts in childhood – really!.....................7Chapter Three What we know about risk factors.....................................16Chapter Four Obstacles to achieving good health...................................39Chapter Five Your roadmap to better health........................................45Chapter Six Positive choices pay big rewards......................................57Chapter Seven Feasting on nutritious food – or not..........................63Chapter Eight Kid Fit: Engage and enjoy physical activity.........................76Chapter Nine How to cope, like yourself, manage stress............................86Chapter Ten Arnold's story: learn from him........................................93Chapter Eleven Pitfalls can hamper good intent, behavior..........................99Conclusion.........................................................................103Appendix About Health Ahead/Heart Smart...........................................105About the authors..................................................................127Glossary...........................................................................131Resources..........................................................................135 Chapter One The Bogalusa Heart Study In 1972, the Bogalusa Heart Study (BHS, Bogalusa, Louisiana) was identified at Louisiana State University (LSU) Medical Center as a national Specialized Center of Research (SCOR). The United States Congress had mandated the National Institutes of Health to establish SCORs to investigate major causes of cardiovascular disease: atherosclerosis — a generic term for heart and vascular changes, hypertension, pulmonary disease, strokes, and thrombosis. Bogalusa Heart Study is the only long-term, cardiovascular, community research program in the world in which both African-American and Caucasian individuals have consistently participated from early childhood through adulthood and middle life. The Study encompassed clinical, epidemiologic, and experimental programs on atherosclerosis, essential hypertension, and diabetes as they related to later coronary and hypertensive heart diseases – and also how these begin in childhood. Before, no comprehensive examination of all children in a total biracial (black and white) community had been undertaken with this detail. Louisiana and Washington Parish The Study – which began at LSU School of Medicine in 1972 and moved to become the flagship Tulane University Center for Cardiovascular Health, Disease, and Prevention in 1991 – brought together a highly skilled and trained, multi-disciplinary team of anthropologists, biochemists, cardiologists, epidemiologists, geneticists, nurses, nutritionists, psychologists, sociologists, statisticians, and – finally – school teachers. They worked together to study hereditary and environmental aspects of early coronary artery disease (CAD), hypertension, and diabetes. Funding for the research came from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Aging, and the American Heart Association – basically from taxpayers like you and volunteers. The Bogalusa Heart Study focus was to understand the early natural history of coronary artery disease (atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries), essential hypertension (high blood pressure), and diabetes mellitus (abnormally high glucose levels in the blood). Our researchers aimed to address these questions in designing and beginning the Study of children five to 17 years. As time allowed in the research, the ages were extended to both and recently to 45 years of age to look at aging and longevity. Mor