Recognizing that government alone cannot solve the problem of childhood obesity, a White House task force is calling on policy-makers, parents, health care providers, educators, athletes and the business community to ensure children’s futures by turning the clock back to a time in the late 1970s when only about 5 percent of kids were overweight.
Today, close to 32 percent of kids ages 2–19 — or one in every three children — are overweight or obese, according to a report released in May by the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity. The report, “Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity Within a Generation,” aims to tackle the daunting public health crisis in just one generation by providing children with healthy, nutritious foods and the chance to be physically active every day, so that they grow up to become healthy adults.
“For the first time, the nation will have goals, benchmarks and measurable outcomes that will help us tackle the childhood obesity epidemic one child, one family and one community at a time,” first lady Michele Obama said at a May news conference in Washington, D.C., releasing the report. “We want to marshal every resource…to ensure that we are providing each and every child the happy, healthy future they deserve.”
The report’s recommendations focus on four priority areas that form the pillars of the first lady’s new Let’s Move! campaign. Launched in February, Let’s Move! seeks to empower parents and caregivers, provide healthy foods in schools, improve access to healthy, affordable foods, and increase physical activity. The campaign is part of a broader White House action plan announced this winter by President Barack Obama to develop and implement a coordinated strategy and identify key benchmarks to end the problem of childhood obesity within a generation. The action plan defines the goal of ending childhood obesity in a generation as returning to a childhood obesity rate of just 5 percent by 2030, which was the rate about 30 years ago.
Calling the epidemic of childhood obesity a national health crisis, the 120-page report lays out 70 recommendations for solving the obesity epidemic, including actions that can be taken very early in a child’s life when the risk of obesity first emerges, including ensuring good prenatal care for parents, providing breastfeeding support, limiting TV-viewing time and ensuring ample opportunities for young children to be physically active.
The report also calls for empowering parents and caregivers with simpler, more actionable messages about nutritional choices based on the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Food marketing techniques are also targeted in the report, which calls for reducing the marketing of unhealthy products to children and improving labels on foods and menus to help caregivers make healthy choices for children.
Additionally, the report calls for improving federally supported school lunches and breakfasts, upgrading the nutritional quality of other foods sold in schools, increasing access to healthy food, and getting children more physically active through quality physical education, recess and other opportunities in and after school.
The task force compiled the report with input from a broad array of stakeholders, including more than 2,500 public comments and suggestions from 12 federal agencies.
The task force will move quickly to develop a strategy for implementing the plan, said Melody Barnes, task force chair and director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.
To download “Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity Within a Generation,” visit www.letsmove.gov.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
