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LIJ at New Hyde Park gets weight loss facility

By Joe Whalen

A public figure who can empathize with those saddled by weight problems helped North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System celebrate the opening Tuesday of its Center for Weight Management in New Hyde Park.

In 1989, as U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Bayside) approached the 300-pound mark, he went on a diet and lost 107 pounds. He said he discovered many things in the process, noting that people looked at him in a different light after he lost so much weight.

On his way to cast a vote one day at the Capitol, a fellow congressman sidled up to him. Prior to Ackerman’s change in appearance, the two politicians had never even shared a conversation.

“He walked up as I was crossing the street and put his hand on my shoulder and started chatting with me as if I was his best friend,” Ackerman told a crowd gathered in the center’s reception area.

“I suddenly realized that what I looked like made the difference. How he viewed me or wanted even to talk to me or be friends with me was based on my weight. I hadn’t changed one bit, except by 107 pounds.”

Appearances aside, positive changes in health form the aim of the new weight management center. Its holistic approach features a multi-disciplinary team of specialists with expertise in psychology, endocrinology, bariatric surgery, exercise physiology, nutrition and internal medicine.

In the past four months, prior to the center’s official debut, about 100 patients have been treated and another 100 evaluated.

“The reason for this center being here … is to try to help people get the discipline to put them in the direction that they should go so they can lead a meaningful life,” said Don Zucker, a local philanthropist who with his wife Barbara provided funds for the center’s creation.

Terri Cohen, a 45-year-old Kew Gardens resident, joined the program after battling weight issues since adolescence. She has lost 10 pounds since August. But she has gained an even greater benefit in terms of knowledge.

Cohen learned from the center’s doctors that she had Grave’s disease, which overproduces thyroid hormones and results in clinical manifestations of hyper-thyroidism.

“I didn’t know where else to go … I’m so thankful that you guys are here,” Cohen said to her doctors, “because I still don’t think I would have been doing anything about it. I still would have had an undiagnosed thyroid disease. My cholesterol still would have been over 300. I’m sure my blood pressure would have still been going up.”

A study released last week by the American Medical Association revealed that nearly one-third of American adults are overweight. The report also stated that 59 million adults are considered obese, and that the number of overweight children has tripled in the past two decades.

“Communities should be very, very grateful that this facility exists,” Ackerman said.

State Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli (D-Great Neck) attended the opening and said Gov. George Pataki recently signed into a law New York’s first obesity reduction program funded by the state Department of Health. Its goal is to analyze and catalogue successful methods for battling obesity.

“This center comes at just the right time,” DiNapoli said. “I know the successful interventions you’re going to have and that are going to emanate from this center will be the kind of success stories that in New York state we’ll want to document and then see that they’re replicated across the communities.”

DiNapoli’s name rests on a proposal currently before the Assembly that would penalize workplace discrimination based on weight. Both he and Ackerman pledged to work with NS-LIJ in investigating possibilities for insurance coverage for people suffering from obesity.

“Better that we reduce the amount of obesity in our population rather than have to deal with it as a discrimination issue,” DiNapoli said. “And it’s also an issue, obviously, that we’re going to have to deal with from an insurance point of view.”

Matthew Ryan, a 37-year-old Glen Cove resident, began addressing his weight problems at the center in June. Since then, he has lost 45 pounds.

“If I was in a desert of desperation, this center offers me an oasis of opportunity,” he said.

Reach reporter Joe Whalen by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.