Obesity

THE PEDIATRIC OBESITY CENTER FOR TREATMENT, RESEARCH & EDUCATION

The mission of the Pediatric Obesity Center is to be at the forefront of the care of families with obesity by providing innovative clinical service, cutting-edge research initiatives, and tailored education of the next generation of providers.

CLINICAL GROWTH DURING COVID-19

Despite the challenges of 2020’s Covid-19 pandemic, our Pediatric Obesity Center continued its clinical growth on multiple fronts with a record number of referrals and patients accessing our care. Our team was quickly able to convert programming to telemedicine, allowing patients to receive care safely and opening up access to our program to families who previously could not participate. We ended 2020 with the most adolescent bariatric surgeries to date in our accredited program and continued our successful collaboration with Hartford Hospital. We are also excited to have welcomed Miranda Lange, PA, to our team. She works closely with our bariatric surgery colleagues getting teens ready for their procedures.

CONNECTICUT CHILDREN’S FIRST FACEBOOK LIVE SERIES

In an effort to help families to stay on track during the pandemic, the Weight Management Program launched Connecticut Children’s first-ever Facebook Live Series. For eight weeks, providers from across Connecticut Children’s went live on the medical center’s Facebook page to talk all things healthy – from a walk around the neighborhood to yoga to healthy cooking to making calming bottles. We engaged families and our colleagues to help all of us stay healthy during an unprecedented time.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

We continue to increase our programming to be the place for Connecticut’s children to receive comprehensive weight management care. We have launched new group programs to keep families engaged in care and will be expanding to offer more inpatient services in 2021. We also have a new collaboration in the works with Hartford Hospital.

RESEARCH & NATIONAL RECOGNITION

The Pediatric Obesity Center maintains 12 IRBapproved studies targeted at improving care for children and adolescents with obesity. Melissa Santos, PhD, clinical director of the Pediatric Obesity Center, continues work on her National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)/the National Institutes of Health (NIH) clinical trial of a cognitive behavioral intervention for youth with comorbid obesity and chronic pain. In addition, James Healy, MD, and Dr. Santos advanced separate innovation grants from Connecticut Children’s Department of Surgery that involve the use of technology to improve health behaviors after bariatric surgery and the creation of a national registry of adolescent bariatric patients.

Covid-19 significantly impacted individuals with obesity in both course and outcome. Our team worked to address the needs of this critical population. Connecticut Children’s Surgeon-in-Chief Christine Finck, MD, submitted an NIH grant to examine the increased susceptibility of patients with obesity to Covid-19, and Dr. Santos, along with Sherene Mason, MD, in Nephrology, submitted a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) grant to understand racial and ethnic disparities in access to care during Covid. Dr. Santos had a commentary published in the Lancet on the resumption of bariatric surgery during the Covid period. We are examining data from patients with Covid infection to understand better the factors placing youth with obesity at increased risk. Our staff also participated in the Connecticut Children’s Ask the Experts series discussing the impact of Covid on obesity (Nancy Trout, MD, and Jessica Williams, MD) as well as mental health (Santos).

Our team remained active both regionally and nationally through research, collaboration and work groups. Program members presented throughout the year at national conferences including Obesity Week and the Society of Pediatric Psychology Annual Conference. Dr. Santos serves on the governance

Pediatric Obesity Center

Specialty Programming fit5 group programs Individualfit5 Superkids Bariatric Surgery

Nutrition classes Tykes (3-5)

PCOS

T.E.A.M. CLUB (6-9)

Mental Health Teens & Tweens (10-18) Inpatient Rehab

Medically supervised program LapBand

Sleeve Gastrectomy

board of the Pediatric Obesity Weight Evaluation Registry (POWER), a national registry for childhood obesity. She chairs the organization’s communications committee and is co-leading the development of a Maintenance of Certification (MOC) project on mental health screening in weight management programs. Dr. Santos is leading the national work group that is writing guidelines for the psychological evaluation of adolescents undergoing bariatric surgery. Our staff has been asked to serve on data safety monitoring boards for large NIH studies (Finck and Santos) as well as on an NIH study section (Santos). Dr. Santos continues her work on the board of directors for the Society of Pediatric Psychology, and our clinical staff members serve as ad hoc reviewers for relevant journals.

EDUCATION

Despite Covid, our center continued its mission to train the next generation of obesity providers. In both clinical and research placements, students were present throughout our clinics and research. We look forward to seeing more graduates of our training.

SUMMARY

Our Pediatric Obesity Center entered 2020 celebrating its 10th year of programming. While the pandemic caused some extraordinary challenges, we look back fondly at 10 years of great work and we eagerly look forward to the next decade.

PUBLICATIONS

Santos M. [comment] The offspring of parents undergoing a weight loss surgery: a systematic review. Surg Obes Relat Dis. 2020;16(6):815-816. doi:10.1016/j.soard.2020.03.018.

Santos M, Gorin A, Thaker S, Zempsky W. Pediatric pain and obesity: relationships and initial tool validation. Clin Pract Pediatr Psychol. 2020. https://doi-org.online. uchc.edu/10.1037/cpp0000376.

Santos M. The inclusion of mental health factors into the resumption of bariatric surgery. [commentary] Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2020; 8(9):742–743. https://doi-org.online.uchc.edu/10.1016/S22138587(20)30278-3. Valrie C, Thurston I, Santos M. Introduction to the special issue: Addressing health disparities in pediatric psychology. J Pediatr Psychol. 2020;45(8):833–838. https://doi-org.online.uchc.edu/10.1093/jpepsy/ jsaa066.

STAFF

Melissa Santos, PhD, Clinical Director, Obesity Center Adam Brown, PT, DPT Haley Duscha, RD Christine Finck, MD, FACS James Healy, MD Miranda Lange, PA Priya Phulwani, MD Michael Reiss, PsyD Rachel Sadinsky, PT, DPT Nancy Trout, MD Jessica Williams, MD