… and she practices what she preaches
By: Hilary Parker
Each day, Dr. Luann Labian, a Princeton-based pediatrician, sends her three daughters off to Princeton’s public schools with lunches in tow.
A typical meal includes a sandwich on whole grain bread, a piece of fruit, raw vegetables and a bottle of water a far cry from the cheesy french fries and less-than-appetizing fruits and vegetables that she said are still available for purchase in the school cafeterias.
Dr. Labian is a member of Princeton Regional Schools’ Health and Wellness Committee and a former member of Fork Lift, a Princeton organization that targets nutrition and childhood obesity in the school district.
Between her active medical practice and her community involvement in obesity initiatives, Dr. Labian has researched the childhood-obesity epidemic extensively, and said it is a massive problem in America, and Princeton is no exception.
"As a society, we’ve sold our kids’ health to food companies, and we’ve not paid attention," she said. "We give them way too many choices."
While she recognizes the positive steps that the schools have made in moving toward healthier food options, she said far more will be required to effect lasting change.
"They’re making efforts and movement, but it needs to be bigger steps," she said. "There needs to be no junk food."
Dr. Labian regularly presents her patients with a Red Light, Yellow Light, Green Light food program to help make confusing nutrition choices understandable to children of all ages.
Green-light foods are healthy foods that can be eaten in any quantity, any time, such as fresh and minimally processed fruits and vegetables.
A yellow light indicates slowing down, and Dr. Labian said yellow-light foods require just such an approach. Most foods are yellow-light foods, meaning they should be eaten slowly in controlled portions. She emphasizes the social and psychological factors in eating and also stresses the importance of eating mindfully, rather than in front of the television or computer.
Red-light foods, such as candy, potato chips and pretzels, are foods with minimal nutritional value. For children who are overweight, she recommends only one red-light food per day, but her approach seeks to avoid the diet mentality.
Unfortunately, she said, many of the purportedly healthier options that food service providers are bringing into the schools baked tortilla chips, Gatorade and juice boxes are red-light foods.
"I don’t believe in diets for kids," she said. "This is a game. It’s to help teach how to choose healthy foods for a lifetime."
As the children she works with get older, she teaches them the importance of recognizing portion sizes. She uses the same approach with her daughters, who can readily recount the number of Cheez-Its in one serving.
While Dr. Labian has presented this approach, which is used in schools throughout England, to area school districts and parent-teacher associations, it has yet to be adopted in any of the local public schools.
She is also working to change the approach to exercise, especially for girls, who she said tend to move less beginning in fourth and fifth grade. She said a visit to any playground shows the girls sitting off to the side chatting as the boys run and play.
Through her involvement with the Health and Wellness Committee, Dr. Labian is promoting a variety of programs through the schools that could help children get the 60 minutes of physical activity recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
In addition to advocating a formal fitness center in the high school, Dr. Labian also encourages parents to take turns having groups of children over to play loud music and just move around. Her loose interpretation of exercise seeks to make it fun and affordable for children and families so they will stick with it.
"We need to be more creative," she said. "There are things that we can do jump around to music that don’t have to cost money. These are inexpensive ways that will reflect the importance of our healthy bodies."
A proponent of after-school programs, she would like to see more programs added to the school district’s roster that focus on activity and said they needn’t be costly. Something as simple as three days per week of "Wiggle Time" for youngsters or dance time for adolescents could make a big difference, she said.
Also an active proponent of offering local, fresh foods in the schools, Dr. Labian said offering produce grown at nearby orchards or in teaching gardens that the children plant themselves would not only support the community, but teach children to take pleasure in growing and eating healthy foods.
Dr. Labian is involved with talks with Rutgers University scientists seeking to conduct a large-scale study investigating the body mass indices of children, including those in Princeton schools. She also is working with a nutritionist at University Medical Center at Princeton to develop an evening group program that she will offer to children and their parents at her office in the Princeton Shopping Center.
While Dr. Labian recognizes the importance of academics and cultivating a healthy mind, she is concerned that Princeton’s focus on academics, in lieu of physical activity and health, may have far-reaching negative repercussions.
"We are a very academic culture," she said, commenting that area children rush home to do homework, rather than playing outside and getting exercise something they desperately need after sitting in school all day long.
"Let’s remember," she said, "our bodies need to be healthy, too."