Dr. Brian Saelens
Featured in interaction, January 2007 (PDF)
Few people would disagree that today’s lifestyle is more sedentary and that opportunities for food (paired with larger portions) are ubiquitous. Rates of obesity and related health complications have undeniably ballooned within the last 30 years. This is seriously affecting children as well as adults.
Current research looks at many contributing factors regarding obesity: hormonal signals, genetics and even the ramifications of bariatric and/or gastric bypass surgery. However, such detail is usually focused solely on adults.
Dr. Brian Saelens, who holds a PhD in clinical/health psychology, is among the few researchers to conduct peer-reviewed studies that begin to assess weight control treatment efficacy for children.
He has recently arrived at Seattle Children’s Research Institute from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, and is pioneering a blend of clinical research, behavioral psychology and analysis of environment and urban planning.
Dr. Saelens says he intends to design interventions that have the most health benefit, and what he discovers could modify traditional interventions.
For instance, Saelens has documented that increased physical activity in children, more than any other behavioral factor, decreases visceral fat (fat in the abdominal cavity). Thus, dietary change may not be sufficient for improving overweight children’s health.
Because diet and dietary habits are ingrained functions of a family unit, trying to modify eating habits usually involves a considerable investment in attempting to retrain both child and family. What if such retraining efforts centered on diet are better focused elsewhere?
Saelens’ studies are starting to map the details of where childhood weight-control efforts can be best invested.
Treating obesity in children, as most researchers and health care providers know, goes beyond writing a prescription.
Children and families’ health behaviors exist within and are influenced by the environments in which they live. Saelens is starting to quantify how a community’s physical structure might contribute to such behaviors, similar to the way pharmacokinetics examines specific drug metabolism across individuals and populations.
How do factors like access to parks or other outdoor play spaces influence whether a child will be more or less active, dangerously overweight or not? How significant might it be — or not be — to live in a pedestrian-friendly, high density neighborhood?
With Dr. Saelens’ studies in the forefront, questions like these will begin to have measurable answers, and pediatricians will therefore better understand and improve child health.