To save their children, parents join fight

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI -- Monica Balda is saving her daughter's life.
Last month, she put Amber, 6, in the Dia-Beat-It and Kid Fitness Into Tomorrow (FIT) programs at Baptist Hospital.
Amber, who weighs 89 pounds and is pre-diabetic, attends the Kid FIT exercise program three days a week and sees a nutritionist monthly.
The class of seven children work out for an hour -- rotating from hand weights to the treadmill to hula hoops.
The program, said director Marcia Weingarden, tries to lower weight by lifting self-esteem. Many of the children have been teased by schoolmates.
Seeing results
After three weeks in the program, the cherub-faced Amber turned to her mother and declared: "Look mom, my pants fit me and I don't have to pull my tummy in."
Helping Amber has become a family affair, Balda said. Instead of hitting McDonald's or Wendy's three or four times a week, "now I'm cooking," Balda said. "Most of what I cook is either baked or broiled or in the pan without oil."
She added: "We're counting her calories. She eats 1,100 and 1,200 calories. She's on 1-percent low-fat milk. If she has to drink Coke, she drinks Diet Coke. It's been hard switching her diet, but little by little we've done it."
Scott Saxon, an exercise physiologist at Baptist, said changing Amber's eating and exercise habits early was the best thing her mother could do for her daughter.
Otherwise, "instead of her getting a lot of these cardiovascular risk factors in her 40s and 50s, she's going to be getting them in her 20s."