Gov. Bobby Jindal and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center announced the formation of a childhood obesity and diabetes research program Wednesday at Pennington and cut the ribbon on the opening of a new facility to house the program.
The new facility, the Translational Research Clinic for Children, or TReCC, was formed with $6.4 million from the state of Louisiana. It is expected to become a center for researching the underlying causes of childhood obesity and diabetes and will be the only facility to research infant metabolism in the country, Jindal said.
“When we talk about the obesity epidemic in the state and in the country, we most often think about adult obesity,” Jindal said. “We often don’t talk about the impact it has on our children.”
As many as half of the children in the state are overweight or obese, and one of out every $10 spent on healthcare in Louisiana is spent on health problems resulting from obesity, Jindal said.
The research program and TReCC will work in collaboration with the LSU Ag Center and Health Sciences Centers in New Orleans and Shreveport, said William Cefalu, Pennington Biomedical Research Center executive director .
“This program allows us to extend our expertise and proven leadership in obesity and diabetes research to tackle the childhood obesity epidemic,” Cefalu said.
LSU President F. King Alexander said the “epidemic” of childhood obesity, which the new research program aims to reverse, is not just about the health of Louisiana’s children.
“This issue is about K-12 schools, this issue is about higher education, this issue is just about everything that our states are talking about,” Alexander said. “If we do not tackle this issue, this issue by itself will swamp our state budgets for decades to come.”
Jindal said $8 million was spent on obesity related health care each month and childhood obesity predisposes adolescents to diabetes, which can lead to blindness, kidney disease, heart disease and nerve problems.
“The clinic will go a long way toward improving the nutrition of our children and it will help them live fuller and happier lives,” Jindal said.
Peter Katzmarzyk, the associate executive director of Pennington Biomedical, said Pennington recently completed a study funded by the National Institutes of Health on identifying the best markers of abdominal obesity and future risks among 400 Baton Rouge children, which is an example of the studies the facility will be used for.
Katzmarzyk currently leads a 12-country childhood obesity research study of 6,000 children to better understand the underlying determinants of the development of obesity.
Alexander said as a land-grant university it was LSU’s job to help the state tackle it’s problems and provide solutions to every problem Louisiana has.

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Lauren Duhon

Gov. Bobby Jindal speaks about active lifestyles and childhood obesity Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014 at a press conference in the new Translational Research Clinic for Children.