the following is an encore presentation

of louisiana public square

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louisiana public broadcasting

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[Music]

hello and welcome to louisiana public

square i'm beth courtney president of

lpb

and joining me for tonight's discussion

on healthy living

is family physician and author dr ronnie

whitfield

welcome ronnie thank you so much beth

it's great to be here

you know obesity is a condition that i

see more and more in my practice

in fact the latest state of obesity

report by the robert wood johnson

foundation ranks louisiana first in the

country for adult obesity

unfortunately that's not a surprising in

a state where every social event becomes

a food event

and our cuisine attracts the tourists

from all around the world

well that's certainly true but you know

if living a healthier lifestyle is one

of your new year's

resolutions tonight we're here to help

ever wonder which diet is the most

effective for shedding extra pounds

what weight loss surgeries are available

and how safe are they

how much exercise do you need and how

can you eat healthily if you live in a

food desert well we've brought together

doctors

nutritionists researchers and weight

loss success stories to help you learn

how to have a healthy new year

my name is denisha thomas since

that last summer i've lost about 12

pounds and i've also lost about four

percent of my body fat

denisha thomas is a senior at lsu in the

pre-med kinesiology program

during the fall semester she

participated in a trial weight loss

program with pennington biomedical

research center

called healthy detours it was designed

by dr

valerie myers the summer before i

started using the app i was actually at

the heaviest weight that i

had ever been in my entire life that

came with back

problems that came with problems with

self-esteem

people in my family were noticing it was

overall a little embarrassing

through an app on her phone thomas was

prompted to eat healthier

sleep better and get more exercise

during the study

the app was centered around the

restaurants on and around campus

there were icons beside each

restaurant's name that showed you if

that restaurant had low fat options

if that restaurant had options with a

great amount of fiber

or a nice amount of vegetables on their

menu

she also learned to pre-plan her meals

for the week i would say before the

study i would say exercise was kind of

like a cramp in my schedule

the resources on the phone actually made

it very easy to

completely understand what type of

workout you were doing how much was

needed

so i realized if i go and jog around the

lake i only need to do that for 15

minutes or five days out of the week

which is completely and totally feasible

kate blumberg is a research dietitian at

pennington

she says this kind of education is key

to making a diet sustainable

and not just a short-term solution the

biggest problem people make when they

are planning a diet is they don't have a

maintenance plan

what are they going to do after they

lose the weight there are many diets to

choose from but most have the same

principle

almost any diet can work if

it is reducing the amount of calories

that people are

consuming you know if you were eating

whatever you wanted to begin with and

now you're following something

most of the time you are reducing the

amount of calories that you have

one trend is the low carb diet the

premise of low carb diet

is that if you focus more on eating

proteins and fats and less carbohydrates

your body is going to have to use your

fat in your protein stores

to burn energy but if too few carbs are

taken in

the body can go into something called

ketosis

which you know can help you burn

calories quicker but also can make you

irritable fatigued tired those type of

things

but carbs are not the enemy bloomberg

says a lot of diets they are

seem to be the enemy but i think it's

more the

quality of the carbs that you are having

so you know processed foods chips

and you know a lot of foods with sugar

in them and things like that

no we don't need those but our body does

need fruits

and vegetables and whole grains

bloomberg says there are pros and cons

to meal replacement diets like slim fast

or nutrisystem because a lot of times

when people want to go on a diet the

thing they say is well i just don't know

what to eat

and this just kind of eliminates that

the problem with

meal replacements is that again there's

no plan for afterwards

it doesn't teach people anything it

doesn't teach them portion sizes

or which food groups are healthy and

which ones they need to stay away from

pennington meal replacement studies

often include education

components that teach participants

valuable nutrition lessons

for after the study is over bloomberg

promotes the dash diet

developed in part by research at

pennington

the dash diet stands for the dietary

approach to stop hypertension

so it basically was designed to try to

see if they could reduce people's blood

pressures

but over the course of the studies that

they've done they have found that it not

only

reduced the blood pressures but it

reduced the risk of heart disease

diabetes

certain cancers and of course also help

people with weight loss

dash requires decreased sodium and

saturated fats

along with more fruits and vegetables

whole grains and low-fat dairy

if you're looking to start a diet

consult a dietitian for official advice

i truthfully believe that it is not one

size fits

all someone who loves to cook who likes

a lot of variety

in their food and things like that they

are going to do terrible at a meal

replacement type

diet where they have to eat the same

things over and over and they really

don't have much time you know they don't

really prepare them themselves

in louisiana a state where one in five

residents live in poverty it's not

always

easy for those of low socioeconomic

backgrounds

to get access to healthy options monica

mcdaniels is clinical services manager

of the state's wic program in areas

where

there are high incidence of food deserts

the accessibility to appropriate foods

can be quite the challenge

transportation to the grocery store a

full-line

grocery store may also be one of the

challenges that our participants

face the wic program or the special

supplemental nutrition program for women

infants and children helps mothers who

qualify

choose healthy foods the wic program

targets

iron nutrients vitamin a vitamin b

vitamin c and zinc calcium vitamin d

and we have food prescriptions

and with that though there are only

certain foods that

the participant will be able to purchase

no matter who you are

losing weight is about learning to make

healthy choices

because it is a lifestyle change if you

really want this to be long-term

you have to learn how to make changes

joining us to explore some of those

changes is our studio audience

it includes individuals who are at

different points in their healthy

lifestyle journey

we'll hear what diets have worked for

them what fitness regimens they follow

and why some of them chose weight loss

surgery we'll also hear from folks who

help

underserved communities eat healthier

thanks to everyone for being here

i want to toss out a few things before

we get started we created an online

survey about this month's topic

among the more than 125 respondents we

discovered the following

of those taking the survey 71 percent

consider themselves overweight

28 percent a normal weight and less than

one percent

underweight after using a body mass

index chart

43 fall under the overweight category 25

fall under the obese category and 15 in

the extremely obese category

17 come under the normal category when

it comes to carbohydrates 24 percent eat

four or more servings a day

34 of the respondents eat three servings

a day

33 percent eat two servings a day and

only nine percent

eat one serving of carbs daily for

vegetables 14

have them four or more times a day 26

percent consume vegetables three times a

day

most respondents about 34 percent eat

two servings a day while six percent of

respondings don't eat any

vegetables during the day at all forty

two percent of respondents haven't tried

dieting but twenty five percent tried

their own plan

the most popular diet is weight watchers

tried by twenty one percent of

respondents

followed by the atkins and sugar busters

diet at thirteen and nine 9

respectively some respondents have tried

multiple diets

so let's start here guys what have you

done to get in shape

and what motivated you to start we'll

start with monica

absolutely my motivating factor was

uh not uh working so much i chose the

field of nutrition i'm a registered

dietitian by trade

so i chose the field of nutrition to

keep me accountable

uh quite honestly and uh when life

happens uh

childbearing years start uh

you see the freshman 15 and i think you

see the the married 20.

so uh with with everything going on once

the children

were independent enough to you know

complete their own homework

having a supportive husband i was able

after several years of you know being a

nurturing mother and wife

to redirect my and rechannel my energy

back to exercise

great great yeah so and that that is

where my journey with

increasing my uh physical exercise

uh began very good point we're female

dominated on this panel but elmo i'd

like to ask you about your journey to to

weight loss and fitness how did you get

involved in this

well first of all i give a lot of credit

to uh the people at pennington

because they have educated me over the

years i've been on

a number of their studies probably

the one that's been the most beneficial

to me has been e-mechanic

which basically was exercise okay and

that helped a lot uh

it helped me to develop a routine for

working out

and even today a couple of years after

i've finished that study i'm still

working out in the gym three to four

times a week

in addition to that i'm a lifetime

weight watcher so i've been

very conscious of what i've eaten

although the struggle is still

before me so it definitely was a

lifestyle change for you yes

lindsay you you had a different path you

you were a little more

strategic or surgical might i say how

about your weight loss journey

um well being a new mother and gaining

weight of course i got to my

uncomfortable weight and i wasn't um

i guess you say confident anymore um

i tried several diets and they just

didn't agree with me

i don't know if i just didn't stay with

the plan or you know

how um my lifestyle was especially with

my husband's good cooking

i went to the aspen clinic i knew a few

people that went there

and they had very good success with it i

went

i had a good success with it the pounds

started dropping off immediately they

helped me with my diet plan

um my grocery list and everything i

needed to do and um

here i am great well from the surveys

and talking to you guys i know structure

is important

but i'd like to also know what are some

barriers david what do you think of some

barriers to weight loss what do people

talk about i always

hear time is the is the biggest barrier

but what berries might some folks face

uh i'd have to say food number one

louisiana cooking

that's right but uh i i

had lost about 25 pounds myself

i i have a hard time i i admire and

respect

so many of these folks that you know uh

count calories and carbs and

i just uh to be honest with you i'm

that's kind of a barrier to me i i

i'm able to um uh to control my

my diet just by cutting down on uh

the amount of food that i eat in uh less

alcohol

uh you know we're kind of a party state

i guess those empty calories

and a wonderful uh way of life here but

uh i can cut down on calories by doing

that

and uh my family's pretty supportive we

don't eat a lot of processed foods

but but anyway i i think

i think those alcohol food uh

those things are sort of barriers uh

yeah you hear that more calories you

know in and less calories out and that's

how people continue to gain weight nurse

row

uh we have some nurses in the building

and we have a different

experiences we are battling with these

patients constantly

what do you think the motivation for the

patient would be as a healthcare

provider what can you do to motivate the

patient

well i actually you know started my

journey you know because

i was listening to you tell patients say

hey look you know you could do this

that you can decrease your carb increase

your activity increase your water intake

and i thought okay one day i went home

and i said well i can listen to what dr

whitfield said and do the same thing

and it started to come off and patients

started to notice i didn't notice

but patients started notice and then i

walked into the office one day

and it was like wow i got on the scale

and i said just those simple things of

just saying hey look you can do it i'm

gonna do it with you right

so if if i could do it they could do it

too you know

so that was my attitude yeah and a lot

of times patients

being someone who went through my

personal journey hired a nutrition coach

and lost those pounds

i sometimes expect the same thing for my

patients didn't always get that

i want to shift tracks for a minute lisa

there are some folks and i think in this

room we're all okay but there are some

folks who just don't have

access to healthy foods what are the

options how can we how can we help those

individuals well

i think mainly the fact that you know i

do i am with the red stick farmers

market and we provide markets

in north and south baton rouge areas

the ones that have been mostly

challenging are the ones in the food

desert areas

so i think education is is key

to getting the word out about the the

food travels less miles then it's more

nutritious than

if it's coming from you know across seas

or other countries

or things like that but access has been

one of our

major issues in the north baton rouge

and the south baton rouge community

with the mayor's healthy city initiative

there was a

quite a few programs that came out with

that and that was break on the go to

increase the

physical fitness in the school systems

and also we came with the mobile farmers

market and the mobile food pantry

just so we could provide food in those

low income areas or the low food access

areas

so there have been different things put

into place it's just that

you know the community buy-in is the

most important thing like once they

adopt that

idea that hey we need to change our

diets and think about their family

members

who suffer from diabetes and high blood

pressure then that's

how we kind of tackle that situation

great great so we do have some options

out there by show of hands does anybody

use

anything unique a fitbit calculator a

higher personal trainer to help them in

their process other than surgical

procedures by show of hands

okay not as many as i thought mona what

what what approach did you use to lose

weight

um that was a good answer i've actually

had the gastric sleeve

okay um what prompted me to have the

surgery is i have

11 year old and a 17 year old and i've

watched

my mother die from diabetes at the age

of 62

and it was very difficult and i didn't

want to do that to my kids

so i decided after being diagnosed with

insulin resistance

and also being diagnosed with some other

health issues

and i ended up being 40 bmi

i said i had to do something and you

took something

all my family and friends were like oh

you you look great

you look great and i guess the way i

carried my weight and stuff i

was evenly distributed over my body

however

i was breathing very

hard i was very wheezy

i couldn't do physical exercise like i

used to

and i always been a gym rat and i mean i

was

in dance team for 18 years i was a

cheerleader

growing up i mean i was always very

active but once i started having kids

back to monica's you know use that child

bearing and everything

and you get complacent in life yeah life

so i decided to do this and it's been

the best decision i've lost over 60

pounds in just a few months

and um i highly recommend

it if those individuals can do it if the

other options don't work

well congratulations weight loss sorry

about your mother's loss but when we

when we address obesity we can reduce

our or increase our life span

by by reducing our risk of diabetes and

heart disease so it's very important

that

we use natural approaches as well but

sometimes those salvage procedures

are necessary that's kind of all the

time we have for that section and i

really appreciate you guys we're coming

back with some more questions

when we return we'll be joined by our

panel to further explore how to have a

healthy

new year we'll be right back

welcome back to louisiana public square

tonight we're discussing how we can live

healthier in the new year

joining us now is our panel of experts

dr drake bellinger is a bariatric

surgeon with the weight loss surgery

centers of louisiana

since 1997 he has performed over two

thousand weight loss surgical procedures

including gastric bypass and gastric

banding

dr catherine champagne is a registered

dietitian

and professor at the pennington

biomedical research center

she helped to develop the dash diet

which has been ranked number one

by u.s news and world report for seven

consecutive years wow

rudy macklin is the director of the

governor's council on physical fitness

and sports

for the past 23 years rudy has served as

an advisor on health policy issues

affecting underserved immigrants

refugees and ethnic populations

and stephanie m elwood is an extension

associate with the community

and school garden programs at southern

university ag center

her current work includes building

nutrition education sites across the

state

and working to eradicate food deserts

before we go to our audience

i'd like to ask you each briefly if you

could give louisiana a leather grade on

its health

dr bellinger i'd give us uh c-plus c

plus a little higher than i thought

dr champagne i'd give us a c-minus

c-minus okay

rudy and f and f and

miss l wood i would give us a c because

we have lots of potential

lots of potential lots of potential to

grow uh if you ask dr whitfield i'd

probably give us a d

a d plus and i think that's dealing

mostly with the obesity

epidemic that we have in our state i

want to talk some questions out to the

audience now so

you guys help me out a little bit bianca

you had a question about

the resources uh could you could you

could you tell us a little bit about

what you

were asking um well i work with

lsu ag center with the healthy

communities project

in rural st helena parish

and sometimes we find that there may not

be enough resources

because it's not necessarily a food

desert but there's

lack of access to different fresh foods

fruits and vegetables for the community

there okay

so just wondering what type of resources

are offered by

the governor's initiative um

specifically with nutrition and physical

activity

correct anyone in the panel would like

to take that question oh

i guess it was directed toward me with

the governor's council on physical

fitness and sports you know

we concentrate on obesity instead of all

the other health issues because when we

deal with obesity

it cross walks with a lot of other

diseases and death

hypertension diabetes upper respiratory

problems even cancer

so if you can get a handle on obesity

you know you really

help reduce all the other diseases and

sicknesses around this

around around this state now i travel

the entire state

and the thing that really gives me a

great caution is the children

when i see children at 10 11 years old

with high blood pressure

when i see them with respiratory

ailments you know that tells me that

upcoming with our our youth coming up to

become adults they're really going to be

sick

when they become adults and so that

really

makes me really concentrated put a

microscopic microscopic view

on the rural areas in particular right

right

theresa i think you had a question that

dr bellinger could probably address

could you could you ask dr bellinger

that question yes as an hr professional

i'm always looking for opportunities

to allow people to have good work-life

balance

what if any programs does the state

offer

that might give businesses an incentive

a tax incentive to offer more

work-life balance programs in their work

establishments

well maybe that was for for rudy instead

of not developing okay

well we have uh what we call employee

wellness programs

uh sometimes uh with your employer if

you're involved in an employee wellness

program

they'll give you a break on your

premiums on your on your health

insurance

and we have a program called own your

own health where you can track your own

physical activity and nutrition programs

online as well as we have a city versus

city

uh challenges going on like we have

monroe versus alexandria

baxter versus tallulah and we're working

on new orleans versus shreveport

and to give people different ideas and

and

motivate them to be physically active

and

move more but from the employer's

standpoint studies will show you that

health employees are the better

employees it reduces absenteeism

it boosts morale and so when you have an

employee

wellness program in your workplace you

have better employees and profitable

employees as well

and so there are a lot of state

companies around now that are really

going to that

particular thing when it comes to

employee wellness and we do it at the

louisiana department of health as well

and so you can just call my office and

i'll help you get started

stephanie i think you now you're

familiar with resources as well what

other options are there

available um well

i can tell you about the programming

that we do at southern at the ag center

we work with different usda grants one

of them

was with dr tiffany franklin eradicating

food deserts through

the development of school gardens so

teaching

health consciousness also having gardens

on campus teaching the skill of how to

grow

you know from the seed to eating the

broccoli we've also worked

with incarcerated and adjudicated youth

teaching gardening skills as well

not only for eating healthy foods but

also landscaping and other

opportunities and we're also involved

with the healthy communities grant

in several parishes madison tencent st

helena

and um southern university um

focuses on the food desert neighborhoods

and um making more fresh produce

available through

gardening efforts great great dr

champaign you

you've done a lot of research were there

any programming or things that you may

have encountered during your research

that are resources that may be helpful

as well

well mostly we've done diet studies um

looking at different types of diets

comparing diets

comparing strategies and along with

many of our we we do know that people

can lose weight

the problem is maintaining the weight

loss

so any strategy that you can use

the one that i think is the most

effective

for people who don't want to have

surgery

is to record the food that you eat

because

and i will tell you based on our

participants in the past that's the most

hated strategy but the most

effective strategy it creates awareness

of what you're putting in your mouth and

i think the concept then is

that you actually can know how many

calories

is physically in there we did that with

a pounds loss study

where we gave participants menus and the

concept was

follow these menus but the the the more

long-term message

was that when you see how much of each

food group is on the plate then you

could

take that a step further and substitute

other foods to make a difference make a

difference

i want to shift gears a little bit dr

bellinger i do my best to keep my

patients from coming to see you

but i have been unsuccessful in that

obesity is truly an epidemic

could you elaborate on that patient that

comes in that you have to address in

many cases i have patients that i don't

think need to procedure but there are

many cases now that you're you're having

to do these surgical procedures they're

salvaged procedures

uh yeah i think one of the greatest

indications in one of the best

indications for weight loss surgery

is diabetes so diabetes not only

are we getting a person to lose weight

so

things like high blood pressure and

sleep apnea tend to go away as well

makes the overall health of the patient

better but there's an intrinsic

process within the operation that starts

the reversal process of diabetes so

not only does the weight loss help

lessen the impact of diabetes but

something within the surgery

well uh the operation reverses some of

those effects by the chemical changes

that it causes

wow so reversing diabetes uh reducing

blood pressure i've had patients that

have come off all their medications

after a salvage procedure and

it's done wonders um we have one of your

patients here

and i just tiffany i tell me i'd like

for you to share maybe a little bit of

what happened but uh you had a question

as well so

you you had surgery by dr bellinger what

led you to that and

and um how are you doing i did thank you

for having me here yes ma'am

uh um i had the gastric sleeve

uh three years ago this past august

and i guess my motivation was i was

tired of

comfort eating um

my child was called home coming up on

seven years

and um it just

it just it was just a a horrible

eating habit you know i was trying to

comfort myself with food and

i just wasn't getting anywhere and i

needed a major

jump start and um

i i was

back and forth yo-yo you know dieting

and it just wasn't helping at all

and i had uh encountered

several people who uh dr bellinger

himself uh

had performed weight loss surgery on

them and

um you know i just took a look at myself

my life you know and i said

you know god may have called one of my

uh children home one of my girls home

but i have two other girls to live for

and um i'm not i'm not going to live

very long

if i continue with this weight you know

and

then it was um you know high blood

pressure and the fear of going to the

doctor and say well congratulations miss

larry you

you're you you're successful on becoming

a diabetic so

i said you know i deserve it i need a

quick jump start

and um i saw dr uh met with dr ballinger

and um from there i've just i've just

taken off

i've done it i've maintained it i've

changed my eating habits i've even um

learned how to cook uh healthier for my

family

and um so you so you'd recommend dr

bellinger

i kind of got the feeling that you would

so it's just been a great it was it was

just a great

great decision i i am very glad that i

made that decision to do that because it

just wasn't working trying to do it on

my own you know i'd lose weight gain it

lose weight gain it and um it it just

you know i just wasn't living a healthy

life you know i

exercised 15 20 miles a week

and i watched my carbs you know

um so it just and dr bill and she said

she had a key point

it's not just a surgery after the

surgery there's life after surgery what

recommendations are you giving patients

what happens after the salvage

procedures

uh we like to follow our patients we

follow them very closely for the first

year while they're in

the weight loss phase right after

surgery and then we want to follow them

for an additional five years

wow and part of and most of the programs

here around the state have been

accredited as centers of excellence to

perform bariatric surgery and weight

loss surges

bariatric surgery and one of the things

that you

must show that you want to do or you

have to do is follow the patients for

five years because

that's when they hit the mark where you

know that chances are that weight loss

will be maintained for a very long time

if they make it through five years

awesome awesome robert i haven't heard

from you um you had some questions about

uh educational programs and eating

healthy and also we mentioned cooking

but before i get to robert how many

people cook

show pants lindsay

we gotta give her this fast food thing

so so mr robert

what was your question in regards to

healthy eating well i think it

like rudy alluded to it has to start at

a young age

with education educational programs

um in the times when i was growing up

you know we

just ate pretty much anything we wanted

to

my mother would always say you're eating

too many starches

to get off the starches and i'd say well

no

you know i was hard-headed and now i'm

paying for it because i'm diabetic

so we just need more education in this

state because we all love to eat

i mean we just it's just a happy

uh drinking eaten state and so we need

to

just with a new mayor

and the new governor we need to come up

with more programs pennington's been

great timmy i'm a project at pennington

so right right tiffany you you went a

little different right i think you tried

some exercise and died first and

could you could you share your story uh

yeah um i

back in 2010 was in an accident where i

broke my ankle

bilaterally and i was in a wheelchair

for a year we didn't know if i was gonna

walk

um and i got really depressed and i

gained a lot of weight my highest weight

was up to 367

pounds and after that i tried working

out i tried using

local parks local facilities that were

available to us

i work for breck so we have many

wonderful facilities around here that

you can utilize

and it just wasn't working because it

was a mindset that i had gotten into

and until i was able to correct my

mindset

i wasn't able to get to that but the

catalyst was when my husband got sick

he has had diabetes since he was two

and four years ago he was diagnosed with

kidney failure

and that kidney failure his doctor told

me he said ma'am

you are not going to be around long

enough to help take care of your husband

because we don't know if your husband's

going to make it to get a transplant he

needed a kidney and pancreas transplant

and

apparently that's rare so um

i did the surgery that was the route

that we decided to go because

i needed something that was and it's not

a quick fix but i needed something that

was permanent that was going to be more

lasting

something that i could wrap my mind

around instead of things that to me just

weren't working

and in the long run since then my

husband and i both have been successful

with that and he has since gotten

his pancreas and kidney transplant

wonderful due to himself having weight

loss surgery

um so together we've lost almost

400 pounds total together but because of

that

that's giving us a new lease on life

we've been able to be more active

together now

this past september for our anniversary

we hiked to the top of mount conti in

gatlinburg

wow and without that without the

um experience of

changing our mindset changing our

lifestyles realizing that we got to

those places because of things that we

have done

or not have done um that's why we're

here

that's why we're able to be here right i

mean motivation

seems to be key in everyone's

conversation dr champaign

any experience with individuals that

just can't get motivated can't get this

done

well we actually when we do a lifestyle

intervention motivation and

relapse prevention time management

stress management

all of those concepts are embedded into

the

the the intervention um

one thing that's important is that um

and and i know this is sort of off the

subject but you know when you talk about

diets

almost any diet will work if you follow

it

there's you can lose weight on low carb

diets

high carb diets low fat diets higher fat

diets

but the key is counting calories and

the unfortunate thing about some of the

low carb diets

is that if you restrict carbs you

restrict fiber

and so therefore you may be more prone

to

colon cancer so the american

diet unfortunately is too low in fiber

and it needs to be

much higher probably double what normal

people what people normally would

consume

but you're right motivation um

just a case in point we had a study

going on at pennington right around

hurricane

katrina and a year after hurricane

katrina people were still

finding excuses not to be able to

stick to their diet because they had to

they had

people in their house and they couldn't

be

unkind and not let them cook bad food

for them

so it was it was it was an interesting

um

time but you know family pressures and a

lot of those

really factor in you know we know people

can make a change

but like i said sustaining the change

and carrying it forward are the key

things

well you came up doc with a wonderful

diet the dash diet which

i would like for you to define it for

our audience but many of my patients

battle with busy schedules children and

eating out

um every now and then dr whitfield eats

out but

we try to cook at home um i'm i'm newly

married so my

my wife enjoys cooking so i'm very

fortunate what are your thoughts on

eating out

preparing food we had a discussion about

that a little earlier we did have a

discussion about that um

you know we had a study where we told

people they could only eat out once or

twice a week and that was not a very

good message

but you know the reality is when you eat

out

you really need to know what you're

eating and there are strategies that you

can use

you know you can order food that doesn't

have added fat

you could have your salad dressing on

the side

you know there are many many other

strategies that can be used

but you know in terms of the dash diet

the dash diet was designed

to be a healthy diet and for the seventh

year in a row

it is still the healthiest diet by us

news and world reports

it is not the first diet for weight loss

although

if you count calories and you know about

the food groups

you can make very positive changes and

it could be a more nutrient dense as

opposed to an energy dense diet

um i'm gonna switch tracks we have

someone from breeda here i'd like uh i'd

like lisa to tell me a little bit about

breta

and just define what you guys are doing

to help our community stay healthy well

um bretta

is uh i'm sorry bretta right yeah

bretta's a non-profit

and we support small local farmers here

in louis in the state of louisiana

and they have opportunity to bring their

products to our markets so they can

reach the individuals

here in the baton rouge area and also

some of our producers go out to markets

in the crescent city area

it's not statewide though the is it

statewide the program

well bretta's part statewide we're just

here located here in baton rouge

north and south baton rouge and um

one of our main goals with the once we

receive

the the funding to do the mobile farmers

market which

were to target the food desert areas we

went out into those areas like

scotlandville

and um maybe it's glen oaks area south

baton rouge

uh even over near gush young star hill

church we

we provided a pop-up market there and uh

we targeted uh mostly you know seniors

who

because our markets come between times

between eight and two o'clock

so we would have a lot of seniors a lot

of retirees

some folks that were disabled but the

key to that is that if we had those who

work during those hours we have the

saturday market downtown okay

so it's an opportunity for everybody in

the state in in baton rouge area

to have access to local fresh produce

here and

that you know that comes from here in

louisiana so fresh is best and try to

eat seasonal

yeah yeah mainly that's my thing i'm a

seasonal person

all right uh it's a lot of times when i

it's if

things are not in season or either we'll

have a

bad weather conditions and our farmers

aren't growing a lot of vegetables

and we may have to go out to other

places to get our fresh vegetables but

for the most part if it's in season

that's what my family is going to have

that's going to eat that yeah what

you you work around the state can you

first of all i want to define to our

audience what food deserts are but what

are you doing around the state to

address

um well i work with our snap-ed and fnet

programs um teaching nutrition education

we have nutrition educators throughout

the state

southern new york ag center nutrition

educators and what i do is i go in

if it's a fitting site i help them build

a garden to have on their site maybe at

a council on aging maybe at a head start

where they can actually learn how to

grow

actually harvest and you know continue

it seasonally

we have a lot of presence in baton rouge

and infused food desert

areas as well are you surprised that we

don't know about this anymore that we

just become too urban people aren't

growing and

living as they should well um

i've taught maybe close to 2 000

students you know

maybe more and a lot of times i have a

lot of resistance to i don't want to get

my nails dirty i want to get my shoes

ready but

i am telling you right here right now

that once a student

or an adult touches the soil with their

hands

there's no going back they enjoy it they

love it and it's something that we all

have in common it's something that we

all have in our ancestry and it's

something that we all

should reconnect with if we haven't and

having that skill of knowing how to grow

your own food can go a long way you can

take it with

with you for the rest of your life but a

food desert according to the usda

a food desert in urban areas is

a neighborhood with low low access to

fresh produce

so you don't have a supermarket within

walking distance in an urban area that's

within

one mile okay and in a rural area it's

within 10 miles often times within food

deserts you have low

access to transportation so if you can't

walk to the supermarket within one mile

you're taking the bus

it's very very difficult to retrieve

fresh produce so

one one idea one creative way

to combat that is learning how to grow

your own food in your backyard

if you don't have to go to the store to

get those collard greens if you can have

them in your backyard and have a

continuous

flow throughout the fall then that's a

blessing my dad

had a farm a little mini guard in the

backyard and we'd shoot basketball

take those tomatoes rinse them off and

eat them eat them like apples

so i think we need to get back to that

monica you you

you are very resourceful and uh what i

would just want you to mention some

things about the wic program and what

you have going on

we partner and collaborate with a lot of

the

the panelists are here we work with

the snap ed and the snap educators

coming to the wic clinics

and provide services and teach

our wic participants from time to time

across the state of louisiana we also

work with bretta

with the farmers markets where we and

highly encourage

our wic participants to

come and participate and purchase fresh

fruits and vegetables

there's a matching program that we have

with

the market umbrella in the greater new

orleans area

and we're also expanded into alexandria

lake charles

as well as shreveport at this point with

assisting our wick participants in

securing and purchasing fresh fruits and

vegetables

in 2009 the usda approved

the wic program to serve or provide

whole grains so whole grains are added

to the food package

as well as the fresh choice of fruits

and vegetables the state of louisiana

opted to provide fresh only

wow fruits and vegetables because we are

agricultural state

and we you know from the from infancy

to adulthood with our childbearing age

women we want them to have the

opportunity to be able to

purchase fresh and prepare fresh for

their families to introduce

to the children because like rudy said

it starts

very young with regard to introducing

uh new food ideas and getting our

children

acclimated to healthy exercise as well

as

healthy eating right right we had a very

interesting uh dialogue prior to the

show

and i just wanted david to to share a

little bit of his

his story uh it was pretty amazing and

we're just glad that you're doing well

that was a great journey um having my

wife has stated

at two years old i was diagnosed with

type 1 diabetes which is

juvenile juvenile right learned how to

take

my own insulin shots so

supposed to learn how to eat like i was

supposed to never did want to do that

because going through the teenage years

i rebelled family issues i didn't have

my mom around my dad worked so i just

did whatever it took to get by

okay and 2013

i got diagnosed with end-stage renal

disease what so

i had kidney failure how old were you

then dude i was

32 years old and it was in november

of 2013 and one of the vascular surgeons

she had performed what's called the av

fistula so they can

connect the major artery and a vein

together to do dialysis in my arm

when i started that high blood pressure

um sleep apnea

um and then i got told by the doctor

you can you're not allowed you're not

able to get a transplant unless we do a

kidney and a pancreas because just a

kidney my diabetes would tear

my kidney up automatically but you had

to lose weight and

i was at 289 pounds and they said

i need to be down to at least 170. wow

i've tried different diets and the

problem i had was being

a diabetic on a diabetic diet i didn't

necessarily need

being on dialysis due to high phosphorus

levels

calcium different foods that i would eat

would contradict to the other diet and

that diet would contradict that one and

i ended up getting sick more than i did

losing weight and i've

spoken with a doctor out of hammond

louisiana

who agreed to do a gastric sleeve

he done the gastric sleeve kept extra

watch on me called

he personally called every month just to

check on me see how i was going see how

the healing was going

the nutritionist worked with me on the

shakes to see which would work good with

me

i ended up going from 289 pounds down to

167 pounds

awesome and i received a kidney pancreas

transplant

december of 2015. you look great david

i feel great since then um

the road recovery is hard but i find

that

eating right having to live for my

sister to watch her graduate high school

in college raising her

motivation my wife yeah um

i mean i have a service dog she keeps me

yeah who's who you have with you there

you go

exercise this is pc right

yeah right p-i-s-c-h-o-u-e-t-t dr

bellinger how common

is is this story how common is the

scenario and how safe are these

procedures

and maybe even share some of the

different type of procedures that you

guys are doing for weight loss

uh well for weight loss uh the surgical

procedures we have are the gastric

banding which is

fallen out of favor okay so you won't

see it as much but the main two are

gastric bypass and the vertical sleeve

okay

uh in david's uh particular situation

the gastric

sleeve is probably the best because the

medications that you're going to need

for a transplant patient right

have to be monitored very closely and

have to be absorbed more reliably

and the vertical sleeve is the the

procedure of choice for that because it

doesn't alter

the absorption of medications wow so

this is something that's commonplace

this is not unusual his situation at all

no it's not

wow wow

dr champagne yes from pennington a

question um

i said my main problem i tried to die

renal diet

diabetic diet doesn't necessarily go

together

has i'm not familiar with penton because

i'm originally from texas

do y'all have anything i guess

researched and specific maybe in files i

can look at

or anybody going through my same

situation can try before having to

ultimately forego a gastric sleeve which

is

that would be a bonus well you know in

terms of your particular

situation i think that relying on a

dietitian

who can compare the two diets

and that you need to be on

like the diabetic diet versus a renal

diet

could give you a lot of advice in terms

of

you know what foods would be best for

you to consume versus which ones

perhaps to avoid but

we um it's too bad that we don't have

the resources for

to cure everyone's you know

needs because you know a lot of people

who are just a little bit overweight

are wanting to make changes and come to

see us but

sometimes they don't qualify because

they're not fat enough

which is you know and i i really think

that's sort of

difficult because you know sometimes

people are a little bit overweight and

they just want to lose a little bit of

weight

to make a difference and get to a point

where they don't ever have to worry

about becoming obese

are there any ongoing studies doctors

you could reference us to

well we have done some studies with

weight on weight watchers and the new

weight watchers program

is changing as a result of a

study that was joined between pennington

and several other four or five other

centers throughout the state

so you know pennington is

you know trying to be on the forefront

of helping to decide what might be best

for people in terms of

a a diet we actually did a bariatric

study called heads up dr bellinger here

was one of our

weight loss surgeons

and it was it was really a terrific

study and

i wish it could have gone on for more

years but we are able to follow some of

the people

up to five years and are looking for

funding

to actually try to continue following

those people who had

bariatric surgery yes we're kind of

we're coming close

uh we're going to ask you one real quick

and i want some closing thoughts from

each of you

an obese child makes an obese adult how

true is that statement and how important

is exercise

uh in our young people well the thing is

uh

parents have to be really cognizant of

the fact that

there's a time when you have to say no

no to certain foods and

and sugary uh candy and things like that

uh

springtime that's true but the biggest

problem

with childhood obesity to me not only

you have to have

a good physical education in schools but

after school

i've always noticed that there are kids

who

uh travel basketball teams or football

teams the kids that don't make it

the kids don't are not the best athletes

what happens to them

okay we have so many specialized sports

uh sports are very expensive you know

like soccer costs hundreds of dollars

baseball costs hundreds of dollars and

in low-income

communities those kids can't afford to

play those sports

and so what we do with the governor's

council fitness we go in and create

sports

and tournaments in those areas where

they can't afford it because if not

then it's going to wander the streets

and have nothing to do and eat all the

wrong things

so we have to make sure that though to

keep our kids busy and to find those

programs

that will allow their kids to have

something to do after school and in the

summertime

which is really when they're vulnerable

but we have a lot of programs

with the governor's council on fitness

with our elementary fitness competition

and the governor's game where we address

all those things at the same time

well i'll tell you guys i worked with

rudy for over seven years and he's done

some great work and made some changes

and he's very old um i would like to

close

uh missel with any closing words for our

panelists and

and the group today the audience i i

would like to leave everyone with

um just a simple sentence and that is if

a kid

grows kale a kid will eat kale okay

mr mackle well i would just like to say

let's

try to when you start any type of

new diet or exercise program do not do

it by yourself

always have a partner because our

partners the more partners you have

because there's going to be some days

we're not going to be feel like working

out or eating right

sometimes we fall off the wagon but when

you have partners like these two

that are working together your diet and

your exercise are going to last a long

time

without champagne to add to that social

support is very important

in all of our weight loss studies and we

are doing some work with child nutrition

in the state but i want to

stress that a child is at school

for a short part of the day so the

example set by the parents is key to

good child nutrition habits and we have

at pennington we have at the farmer's

market

on thursday awesome very good eight to

twelve

eight to 12. all right all right dr

bellinger um

i would say that when you have a big

goal of losing weight

it's best to achieve it by setting

multiple small goals

so that you can achieve those goals much

more easily in your

ultimate goal of losing a lot of weight

you recommend journaling

yes definitely definitely keeping track

and dr whitfield gave you his five

points to healthy living know your

doctor

know your numbers know your family

history eat healthy and exercise and we

try to emphasize that to our patients

but more importantly

you got to go to the doctor we can't

make we can't diagnose the problem if

you don't see the doctor

many patients come in with diabetes and

high blood pressure and haven't been

seen for years after katrina we would

see folks

five and six years going without their

medications and it's very scary when

someone walks in

david you've had to deal with that and

you see what can happen when things go

untreated for long periods of time

i just want to thank the panelists and

the audience you guys were awesome this

was a great

session hopefully we can do something

like this again and keep everyone

motivated to eat healthy this year

we run out of time for our questions and

answer segment

we'd like to again to thank our

panelists dr bellinger dr champaign mr

macklin and miss l wood for their

insight on this month's topic

when we come back we'll have a few

closing moments

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well i'm inspired i'm going to go out

and try and eat a healthier diet

okay i can't i don't promise that i'm

going to cook more oh no you got to do

it

you got to cook my husband's a good cook

okay well we'll take that just low cat

low low

low calorie low fat low calorie low fat

but you know it is hard in louisiana

because we have such tasty food and as

you said you know all of our social

activities

from tailgating to holidays around that

parties bar mitzvahs whatever whatever

we're eating whatever we're eating

and so consequently we really have to

just keep that in mind i think portion

control

is perhaps one of the biggest things

we've been talking about as well don't

want to deprive anyone of healthy or

good eating but we got to limit those

things and and make healthier choices

well fresh is best go to those fresh

markets on the weekend

i buy them i don't necessarily cook it

that's my problem

although well that's all the time we

have for this edition of louisiana

public square

we encourage you to visit our website at

lpb.org

public square while you're there comment

on tonight's show and

we would love to hear from all of you

thank you for joining us this evening

and thanks for being our guest host it

was great awesome

good night everyone good night

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