Oprah January 26 and 27th, 2009 Obese Families In Crisis, The Intervention

January 26th, 2009: Oprah Winfrey airs a show on 26 Jan that is all about the intervention of families that are suffering from the issue of obesity.  This is part one of a two part show that talks about how weight can get out of control and can cause an emotional division in a family.

Oprah goes deep into the emotions of the obesity issue that 16 teenagers are dealing with.  She dives into the anger and the pain of obesity and how they can change their life.  She tries to show how they can make changes in their life by dealing with the obesity and the issues it brings.

The show started off with a close-up of a teenage girl who is only 17 years old and weighs in at 354 pounds.  Followed by her was Nick, 16 at 385 pounds and Jillian, 17 at 385 pounds.   After sort of a roll call that included many of the overweight teenagers was Josh, 18 who believes he weighs over 600 pounds.  He stated that there was no scale that he could use that would be able to support his weight.

It was a very heart wrenching moment to see the very souls of the teenagers suffering emotionally with their obesity.  As the show progressed Oprahintroduced the husband and wife team Rick and Yvonne Dutra-St. John, who are co-founders of Challenge Day.  The goal of this couple was to intervene with the parents and the children to answer the question “What are you hungry for?”  The teenagers then were asked to stand up and help to discover what was behind the reason for their overeating.  The teenagers were asked to finish the statement “I am angry that…”  This was when the show really became intensely emotionally charged.  This is when the children came out and let loose a barrage of screaming statements towards their parent.  This was where all of the emotions were laid on the table for the worlds to see.  This was the start of the children being able to answer the critical question “What are you hungry for?”

It turned out as the show progressed that the teenagers were eating for various reasons and those reasons could be neatly put into one of two categories.  The first reason was to numb oneself from their feelings or to help express outwardly their feelings.  What was determined was that the reason for being obese really has little to do with food. It was revealed that food was, and is only the outward manifestation of emotions that were not being dealt with in an outward manner.  This was a profound moment, yet it is one that many readers may state they already realize, yet are powerless to negate.

The balance of the show was about dealing with what was behind those emotional issues and what could be done to help the teenagers get past those anger issues.  One disturbing portion was whenever a teenager was in tears wishing they were dead.  All too many teenagers revealed they wanted to kill themselves rather than be obese, yet none of them wanted to be dead.  What  was revealed was that the children were burying their emotions and those emotions have the potential to not only turn inward but to also carry physical disease into the body with those stored emotions.

Part two of the show airs on January 27th and offers a pop quiz and you will be amazed at the results.  Dr. Oz is there on part two and offers advice that he is famous for giving.

PART TWO which aired on January 27, 2009 of The Oprah Show

The teenagers returned and it was discovered that what was shown on TV yesterday was filmed weeks ago and Oprah discussed with the returning kids how it has affected them.  Dr. Oz was present and he discussed a blood test that was given to all the kids and revealed medical issues they were all beginning to experience.  Two were diabetic and one was pre-diabetic.

Dr. Oz then went on to discuss how the worst fat a person could have was belly fat.  He then stated that it also created issues with the liver.  When a person eats too many carbohydrates it adds fat straight around the liver.  This is very, very unhealthy.  He also discovered that it was common in the obese teenagers that they experienced a drop in hormone levels for their sex and actually had an increase in the opposite sex’s hormones.  He said that this will manifest into fertility problems for both sexes if something is not done to correct the obesity issue.

Oprah made the statement of fact that this generation is not scheduled to live longer than their parents.  This is the first generation in history projected to have a shorter lifespan than their parents.

Dr. Oz mentioned that he is starting to perform operations on young people that he used to only perform on the elderly.  He was referring to operations like heart surgery and the like.  He also mentioned that belly fat was a cause high blood pressure and was also a major factor in the cholesterol issue so many people deal with daily.  Dr. Oz then stated how amazing the human body is when the weight is lost.  He said the body has the ability to make a full recovery.  He used sleep apnea as one issue that would just go away when the weight was lost.

There was then a visit to the kid’s schools and the food that was available was terrible and it is no wonder the kids have weight problems.  When showing all the foods that were available Dr. Oz stated that the human body craves nutrients.  If you just eat and do not give it the nutrients it needs, it will just tell you to eat more.  That is why junk food is so bad for a person. 

Dr. Oz then went on to show the basics of how to read a nutrition label found on all foods.  He stressed for everyone to focus their attention onto the serving size.  The serving size relates to portion control and that is what so many ignore.  Also he stressed that we should look at what are the % of the daily recommended allowances.  What your amount of sodium and such because those percentages add up really quickly.

David Zinczenko who was the author of Eat This Not That showed up on the set and went down the list of what choices were healthier.  It was shocking to see what was thought to be healthy was really not the best choice.  His book Eat This, Not That is a highly recommended book for you to own.  It was shocking to learn that turkey bacon is worse for you than regular bacon!

They all then went over some facts about things like how kids eat 29 teaspoons of sugar everyday which is 92 pounds every year.  The facts that were shown show how much it is all stacked against the youth of today.  It was mentioned that teenagers should eat 2,000 calories a day and they should learn about what they are eating.

Over all the show started off with a bang and kind of fizzled out with a bunch of fill in facts and figures to “WOW” us at the end.  There have been better Oprah shows, Much, Much better.