Success Story: Shadee Barzin

Meet Shadee

Eleven-year-old Shadee Barzin hated going to the mall. Shadee was less than five feet tall, but she was already 20 pounds over weight. Trying to squeeze into a pair of pants that fit was agonizing. "It was horrible, I hated going shopping for clothes,'' Shadee recalled. Shadee struggled with her weight for years. Her doctor warned that she was at risk for type 2 diabetes. Efforts by herself and her mom to cut back on fatty and "unhealthy" foods and her participation in an intensive weight-loss program for kids did little to change her eating habits.

At the start of 6th grade, she reluctantly agreed to enroll in the Pediatric Weight Control Program. For six months, she and her mom participated in the outpatient program, meeting with other families and dietary experts every week for 90 minutes. Shadee, who dropped 17 pounds during the course of the program, says the dietary experts "taught me about everything," especially how to set weight-loss and exercise goals for herself. "Now I’ll go shopping for clothes with my friends just for fun,'' says Shadee, who still uses the skills she learned in the program to maintain her weight. "This program teaches you that you don't want to go back to your larger state." “For me, the fact that we lowered our cholesterol to a normal range was an important lesson. Also, the Pediatric Weight Control Program helped our relationship tremendously. It is a great feeling as mom not to worry about her weight anymore because Shadee knows what to do and how to make good decisions,” said Behjat, Shadee’s mom.