As a child, Jennifer DiPietro had a soft roundness to her. It was pleasing then, the sweet rosy cheeks and dimpled folds of skin that made grown-ups tickle and cuddle her.
Then came adolescence, and her plumpness became a sign of excess, leaving her exiled from the popular lunch table, taunted and often in tears.
Now, Ms. DiPietro -- age 17, size 18 -- has begun to accept her shape for what she thinks it is: a fact of life.
"Most times I see myself as a good person even though I'm not a little tiny stick," she says. "But there are still days when I say, 'I'm so fat.' "
I'm so fat. For more and more American kids, it could be a mantra. In recent years, medical researchers have put youngsters on the scale and found a disturbing trend: They're heavier -- and often unhealthier -- than they used to be.
Twenty-one percent of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 were overweight in 1991, a six percent increase from the decade before, according to the latest long-term study by the National Center for Health Statistics.
In fact, so many kids and adults are fat these days that some of the stigma may be fading.
When asked their feelings toward overweight people, 55 percent of the adults surveyed in a 1985 study by NPD Group, an Illinois-based marketing research firm, said being heavy is unattractive. Last year, only 36 percent said they felt that way.
In most schools, though, overweight kids still find themselves branded as outcasts.
"The effect of obesity on children is very big," says Denise Schuffman, a registered dietitian in Owings Mills who works with children. "The greatest problem is they're tormented. There's a lot of name calling. When it comes to activities, they're the last person chosen for sides. These sound like small things. But when you're a child, they're not."
If it's any consolation, youngsters are still slimmer than their parents. After remaining constant for two decades, the number of overweight adults jumped from one fourth to one third, the Center for Health Statistics found. (Overweight was defined as being roughly 20 percent over the recommended weight by the U.S. Public Health Service.)
There are probably as many theories why kids are gaining weight as there are flavors at Baskin-Robbins. But in the end, the problem boils down to one simple fact: Youngsters today are eating more than they're exercising.
"Kids don't even walk to school anymore," says Lori Wiersema, clinical coordinator of the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center. "It's a safety factor, and there's a time crunch that everyone's under. . . . Kids may not be consuming more calories, but they're expending less energy. So they simply get fatter over time. And as they get fatter, they become less motivated to move their bodies. It just doesn't feel good. It's the cycle that perpetuates fatness."
Instead of running around on the playground, they spend more )) time watching TV or playing video games. Their busy parents, often both working, rely on fat-laden fast foods and packaged frozen meals. And the world sends them hopelessly mixed messages about the proper diet.
At school, they're encouraged to eat fruits and vegetables, then asked to sell chocolates for a fund-raiser. At home, they're rewarded for finishing a big dinner with a sugary dessert.
Fat-free alternatives abound. But all around them, portion sizes -- like their own waistlines -- are growing. There's the "Bigfoot" pizza, the "Double Gulp" soft drink, the king-sized candy bar. The implicit message, of course, is bigger is better.
But the biggest problem may not be the food itself; it may be the reasons kids are eating it.
"If I had a bad day, I was constantly eating," says Amy Rohrbacher, 14, who weighed 170 pounds before health problems caused her to consult a dietitian. "But even on good days, I binged. Food was my security. It kept me away from people. It gave me something to do when I came home from school. . . . I'd sit in front of the TV and eat all afternoon."
Party food
But when youngsters are on the go, food still plays a major role in their activities.
Ms. DiPietro began planning her recent birthday slumber party by making a grocery list. (It included tacos, pizza, a vegetable platter, cookies, pretzels, Doritos, ice cream cake, M&Ms;, Coke and Diet Coke for seven guests.) At Catholic High School where she's a junior, the principal's year-old decision to replace some vending machine snacks with granola bars and juice still annoys some students. And even the name for Ms. DiPietro's white pet rabbit -- Marshmallow -- alludes to the subtle power of food in her life.
On Sundays, she buses tables at Calo's, a family restaurant in Northeast Baltimore. Much of her other free time is spent working at a Carvel store, scooping out Brownie Dough ice cream, selling Dream Bars and decorating desserts with whipped cream flowers like the ones that festooned her own birthday cake.
"There are 15 flavors, and it was hard at first," she says of working at Carvel. "I wanted to try every one. But it doesn't affect me as much now. It's not like I eat five scoops."
Like many other youngsters these days, Ms. DiPietro doesn't get much exercise. An honors student who is involved in many after-school clubs, she burns the most calories simply racing from class to club meetings to work.
By her own admission, her athletic efforts have been abysmal. As a freshman, she tried out for volleyball, but hit the ball backward and got cut from the team.
"I'm not really into sports, because I'm not that coordinated," says Ms. DiPietro, who lives in eastern Baltimore County.
A 1994 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta found that only 37 percent of high-school students say they exercise regularly, while 35 percent say they watch television for at least three hours after school each day. During that time, they're bombarded with commercials for fast food, sugary cereals and snacks.
The result is that candy, pizza and chips rank high on their list of favorites, according to a 1994 study by Teenage Research Unlimited, an Illinois-based marketing firm.
"When a youngster comes to see me, the first thing I ask is, 'What's your favorite activity?' " says dietitian Ellen Karlin, who now devotes half her Owings Mills practice to pediatric nutrition. "Many times they say, 'I enjoy reading.' A lot of kids say they like to have friends over and watch videotapes. There are so many hand-held computer games for kids to play and TV shows to watch . . . that children just aren't as physically fit as they used to be. The upshot is I'm seeing a lot more overweight children."
While carrying too many extra pounds may contribute to high blood pressure, high cholesterol and bone and joint problems in youngsters, the most intense pain is often psychological.
In seventh grade, Ms. Rohrbacher first noticed she wasn't built like the other students. She was 5 feet 4 inches tall, weighed 155 pounds and had broad shoulders.
"I'd sit in class and look around and think: 'I'm a lot bigger than he is and than she is.' It made me really self-conscious. A lot of times people would laugh behind me, and I would think they were laughing at me," says Ms. Rohrbacher, who lives in Ellicott City and now attends Centennial High School.
She was constantly snacking then, sometimes having a bag of microwave popcorn with melted butter, a can of soup, M&Ms; and an apple after school.
By eighth grade, she weighed 170 pounds and wore sweat clothes, size extra extra large, to hide her shape. She has a picture of herself in a bathing suit from that time and cringes when she looks at it.
"That's really gross," she says, holding the photo in her hand. "I look like a whale. I never realized I was that big."
Others did. At school, she was called "Fatsie" and "Two Ton." In gym class, she was once ridiculed about her stomach. "A guy said, 'She looks like the Atlantic Ocean with all those waves,' " she recalls.
"If the kids didn't have anything to talk about, they'd talk about me. . . . I thought, 'If I'm this fat, how am I going to make myself presentable?' At times, I'd get so depressed it's like I didn't want to deal with it or with anybody. I wouldn't go out and play or walk the dog. I just wanted to stay home and eat."
Recent medical research hasn't exactly encouraged kids to slim down. Several months ago, scientists announced the discovery of a gene that prevents the brain from getting the message when the stomach is full. And just last week, other research showed metabolism slows for those who have lost weight, leaving dieters in a continuing battle to maintain the loss.
Fitting in
For teens trying to diet, peer pressure is often a major stumbling block. "Kids don't want to have to take their lunch and be different. They want to eat pizza and french fries with their friends and still lose weight," says Kathy Ahrens, a dietitian at Howard County General Hospital who worked with Ms. Rohrbacher.
And thin siblings have been known to sabotage a heavy child's diet.
"They'll come home from school and have potato chips and cookies and say, 'But you can't have this.' It's insensitive, and typically the parent intervenes," says Ms. Ahrens.
In Ms. DiPietro's case, shopping causes the most frustration. She normally buys clothes at 16 Plus and J.C. Penney, but finding dresses for dances brought her to tears.
Last year, she spent nearly a month looking for something to wear to her Harvest Ball. Her original choice from a catalog was too small. She was about to give up when, a week before the dance, she found a turquoise taffeta dress at a consignment shop for sizes 14 and up.
"People who design the dresses think you have to be a Barbie doll to wear them," says Ms. DiPietro, who declined to give her weight. "If you're not skinny, they think you should wear ugly clothes. It makes me mad. I should be able to have the same shopping as anyone else."
Watching Ms. DiPietro's unhappiness has been difficult for her mother, Cookie O'Hara, who is trying to lose 15 pounds herself.
"Jen would come home crying and saying: 'I'm ugly. I'm fat. I don't fit in.' It was hard for her because she's wasn't a size 6. I'd tell her you can't beat yourself up for that. It will work out," says Ms. O'Hara, whose two younger children are thin.
After three unsuccessful diets and lectures from her former pediatrician about her weight, Ms. DiPietro has come to accept that she'll probably never resemble the waif-like models in her favorite fa- shion magazine, Sassy.
"Before, I constantly kept thinking I'd feel better if I were thinner," she says. "I thought I'd get more boys, and I wanted to fit into all those little clothes. But my attitude's changed. Most of the time, I'm happy with who I am."
As more kids plump up in America, they may begin to feel less pressure to slim down.
"We're more tolerant because most of us are overweight," says Harry Balzer, vice president of NPD, which has surveyed attitudes toward fat people. "That's how you deal with this issue. You've tried everything: jogging, hiking. . . . So now you change your attitude."
Several movies -- including the recently released "Heavyweights," a comedy about a summer camp for overweight boys -- depict heavy kids not as tuba-playing klutzes but as stars. And in "A Circle of Friends," due out this spring, the heavy girl finally gets the guy when a college hunk falls for an overweight friend instead of her thinner pals.
"We're always looking for heavy kids," says Suzi Young, co-owner of Camera Ready Kids, a talent managing agency in Silver Spring. "They're still the sidekicks, but they're coming into their own."
At this point, though, less than 10 percent of the 250 kids she works with are overweight, and most are boys. "It's still a man's world," she says. "Boys in general are used more than girls. The boys are considered the football players, the rugged little things. The girls are just considered heavy. It's stereotypical, but it exists."
For Ms. Rohrbacher, that perception along with health concerns -- including a problem with her insulin levels -- caused her to get serious about dieting and lose 25 pounds.
But like adults, she faces an uphill battle in keeping the pounds off. Some 80 percent of overweight youngsters go on to become overweight adults, says Ms. Wiersema of Hopkins. And if parents are heavy, the chances that a child will be increase dramatically.
Ms. Rohrbacher worries that she's put on five pounds this school year. But she plays softball, exercises regularly on the Nordic Track and reads nutrition labels so carefully that she's started chiding her parents about their diets.
Ideally she'd like to lose another 10 pounds, but she says she's comfortable at 145 pounds. "I feel more attractive now," she says. "Sometimes I'll even wear short shorts or a skirt. I kind of flaunt that I've lost weight."
FOOD FAVORITES
According to a survey by Teenage Research Unlimited, the Top 10 foods purchased by teens are:
1. Gum
2. Ice cream (including sandwiches, bars, cones, etc.)
Fast-food hamburger
4. Chocolate candy
5. Pizza
6. Nonchocolate candy
7. Breath mints
8. Cookie
9. Hard candy in a roll
10. Potato chips