Zach's story: a determined young man overcomes obesity

At 11 years old, Zach Garcia weighed 115 pounds, and he wasn't happy. His pants were tight around the waist, his energy was low and his sleep was restless. "I just kept getting fatter and fatter," he says.

For this fifth-grader from Lafayette, Colorado, the timing was right for a change--one year away from middle school, a few years shy of full-blown adolescence. Explains his mother Kathy, "Zach's at an age where he's begun to care about how he looks." So mother and son sought the advice of JoHannah Reilly, the Boulder, Colorado-based naturopath who has been Zach's primary care physician since toddlerhood. Dr. Jo, as she likes to be called, explained what Zach needed to do in a no-nonsense way, and he took her tips to heart. Six months later Zach is 10 pounds lighter and down nearly three pant sizes. And life has been transformed in the Garcia household.

Statistics show that one of every five children is obese, and it is thought that the incidence is on the increase. Obesity, according to medical experts, is a health issue of epidemic proportions. Starting off life with extra pounds predisposes children to an array of health issues that persist into adulthood--increased risk of diabetes, gall bladder problems, heart disease and even cancer. Plus, eating habits imprinted in the family home are hard to correct down the road. A battle begun in childhood against extra pounds can end up lasting a lifetime.

Treatment of an overweight child begins with an overall health assessment and a look at family history for a genetic cause for obesity. But where a naturopath's approach differs from a traditional medical doctor's is that naturopaths take other factors into consideration. According to Jana Nalbandian, ND, a specialist in family health and a faculty member of Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington, these factors include circumstances of birth, whether the child was breastfed and when and how foods were introduced to the diet. In rare cases, obesity is caused by a metabolic disorder, Nalbandian says, but, more often, the causes are closer to home.

Overweight parents are more likely to have overweight children--a simple equation that explains extra weight: excessive food intake plus insufficient exercise. But naturopaths also look closely at another common contributor to obesity--food sensitivity, which can be caused by introducing foods prematurely to a baby's diet or be of unknown cause.

With Zach, Dr. Jo already knew the issues at play. He had suffered from food allergies--manifested as regular earaches, rashes and headaches--since infancy. Zach's family has a predisposition to ulcerative colitis, which is exacerbated by food allergies, giving him further motivation to eat right. "Dr. Jo told me that although I didn't have symptoms now, if I didn't start watching what I eat, I could feel sick when I'm older," says Zach. Dr. Jo also explained that although the allergy symptoms might come and go, the food sensitivities would persist, which surprised Zach. He says, "Since I hadn't had symptoms in a long time, I thought my allergies were gone."

They weren't. In fact, like many people with food allergies, Zach regularly craved and ate foods he needed to avoid. Dr. Jo knew that wheat, dairy and peanuts were trigger foods for Zach, and his favorite snacks before reforming his diet were sandwiches, ice cream and peanut-caramel candy.

For children, the challenge to staying on track diet-wise is resisting temptation in the school cafeteria. Even though his mother packed healthy lunches, Zach often traded with a friend for forbidden snacks--junk food and chocolate-chip cookies.

Learning to avoid trigger foods often leads to weight loss, so Dr. Jo put Zach on an elimination diet for two six-week intervals to confirm which foods were problems for him. Once he was off wheat and dairy, Zach immediately began to drop pounds. "We knew right away we were on the right track," says his mother.

Dr. Jo also spelled out the problems associated with excessive sugar intake, a key component of Zach's diet staples. "Dr. Jo told me that those foods spike your blood sugar. I noticed that when I eat a lot of sweets I get all hyped up and then crash, particularly at Halloween and Christmas," says Zach. So Dr. Jo's other mandate was to keep sweets to a minimum.

The next order of business was to find foods that Zach could tolerate but that also tasted good, and that meant finding a substitute for wheat bread. Spelt was an option, but finding a spelt bread that made a palatable sandwich was difficult. "Most spelt breads crumble or taste like chalk or stone," says Zach. "They were too hard to chew." It was a happy day when he found an edible spelt brand with the consistency of regular bread, says Kathy. Spelt cookies were another welcome find, as was a satisfying low-fat, non-dairy ice cream--Zach likes mocha--for occasional treats.

Dr. Jo encouraged a focus on the positive: a healthy diet with lots of fruits and vegetables, plus sufficient protein. For breakfast, Zach switched to eggs and spelt toast; lunch became a spelt-bread sandwich, chips and fruit; dinner became fish or beef with vegetables such as broccoli, his favorite.