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Childhood Obesity
Why Municipal Leaders Make Childhood Obesity a City Priority
Today, 9 million children over age six are considered obese. These children have a higher risk of developing serious health problems later in life, including heart attack and stroke, Type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure. In addition, increases in childhood obesity may cost governments, businesses, and families $100 billion per year in future health costs, undermining the long-term health and vitality of communities.
Ninety-two percent of all Americans surveyed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation consider childhood obesity to be a serious national problem. If unchecked, the growing problem of childhood obesity could undermine the long-term health and economic vitality of every community in America. By promoting active living and healthy eating, city leaders can take practical steps to help reverse the epidemic.
What Municipal Leaders Can Do to Combat Childhood Obesity
Municipal leaders can promote healthy lifestyles by encouraging physical activity and good nutrition. While there are no "quick fixes," city officials can stimulate and shape local initiatives, promote collaboration across organizations and programs, and support effective programming that improves the health of the nation's children and youth.
Steps the city leaders can take include:
- Forging partnerships with schools to develop school wellness plans and local wellness policies, and to build support for nutritional improvements within school and expanded access to athletic fields and recreational facilities;
- Making the most of out-of-school time by ensuring that programs offer nutritious snacks or meals and daily physical activity, as well as helping local programs access federal childhood nutrition funds;
- Promoting access to nutritious foods by attracting supermarkets to underserved neighborhoods, establishing food policy councils, and supporting farmers' markets and community gardens;
- Utilizing parks and recreation to sponsor free or low-cost programs that encourage physical activity and serve healthy food; and
- Reshaping the physical environment to ensure safe walking and biking routes, create pedestrian-friendly zoning codes, and adopt traffic-calming measures that keep children safe while engaged in physical activity.
Goals of the YEF Institute's Childhood Obesity Programs
The goal of the YEF Institute's childhood obesity programs is to:
- Stimulate and support development of models for city-level policy change and successful collaboration between city and school leaders;
- Continue to build a vibrant network of city officials committed to efforts to reduce childhood obesity;
- Raise awareness among municipal leaders about the childhood obesity epidemic and potential city-level responses; and
- Distill lessons learned from the experiences of six technical assistance sites and disseminate them through a new publication for city and school leaders.
Childhood Obesity Staff Contacts
Leon Andrews, Program Director: 202-626-3039 or andrews@nlc.org
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