In February 2010 the Let's Move campaign was launched with the challenging goals of raising a healthier generation of kids by solving the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation.
Headed by Michelle Obama the nationwide Let's Move campaign has drawn on the support and expertise of health care professionals, parents, teachers and community leaders to tackle the challenge of childhood obesity.
On May 11, 2010, the The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity released their first report, "Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity in a Generation." The report reflects input from 12 federal agencies and more than 2,500 submissions from parents, teachers and health care providers with ways of solving the problem.
The 124-page Let's Move Task Force report includes 70 recommendations for action within both the public and private sector. The report was written to serve as a roadmap to help solve the childhood obesity epidemic and to raise a generation of healthier kids.
In addition benchmarks have been established, as part of the report, with ways to measure progress towards the goals that have been set.
Specific Recommendations of the Let's Move Task Force
In the "Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity in a Generation: The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity" report action items are recommended in five main areas: Early Childhood, Empowering Parents and Caregivers, Healthier Foods in School, Access to Healthy, Affordable Food and Increasing Physical Activity.
Highlights from the specific recommendations for each category have been included below.
I. Early Childhood - 12 recommendations
- Provide expectant women with good prenatal care, which may involve outreach efforts to parents.
- Empower new mothers to breastfeed with support from hospitals, health care providers, local health departments and peer support groups.
- Encourage young children to follow the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) guidelines on screen time, which limit screen time and digital media use.
- Encourage young children to be more physically active.
- Require early childhood programs to provide children with nutritious food and opportunities for physical activity.
- Seek to improve early childhood programs.
II. Empowering Parents and Caregivers - 13 recommendations
- Disseminate simple, actionable messages about the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans through local communities.
- Develop a standard system of nutrition labeling through a collaboration of the FDA, USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service and the food and beverage industry.
- Limit licensing of popular characters to food and beverage products that are health and consistent with science-based nutrition standards.
- Have the food and beverage industry along with the media and entertainment industry jointly adopt meaningful, uniform nutrition standards for marketing food and beverages to children along with developing a uniform standard for what constitutes marketing to children.
- Encourage pediatricians to routinely calculate children's BMI (Body Mass Index) and provide information to parents about how to help their children achieve a healthy weight.
- Encourage dentists and other oral health care providers to promote healthy habits and counsel families on childhood obesity prevention as part of routing preventive dental care.
- Ensure that health care providers have the necessary training and education to prevent, diagnose and treat overweight and obese children.
III. Healthier Food in Schools - 17 recommendations
- Update the Federal nutritional standards for schools meals and improve the quality of USDA commodities provided to schools.
- Increase resources for school meals.
- Have schools consider upgrading their cafeteria equipment to support providing healthier foods.
- Encourage food companies to develop new products and reformulate existing products to they appeal to children and meet nutritional standards based on the Dietary Guidelines.
- Increase the availability and consistency of nutritional education in schools.
- When possible, use school gardens to educate students about healthy eating.
- Encourage school districts to create, post and implement a strong local school wellness policy.
IV. Access to Healthy, Affordable Food - 11 recommendations
- Increase the availability of affordable, health foods in under-served urban and rural communities to eliminate "food deserts."
- Encourage communities to provide fruits and vegetables in a variety of settings such as farmer's markets and community supported agriculture subscriptions.
- Increase the production of healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
- Encourage the food, beverage and restaurant industries to develop or reformulate more healthful foods for children and young people.
V. Increasing Physical Activity - 17 recommendations
- Encourage children to be more physically active through recess, physical education and other opportunities.
- Include strong physical activity components in local school wellness policies.
- Have the Environmental Protection Agency work with school districts to determine whether students can safely walk or bike to school.
- Have federal government, local governments and the business sector work together to improve access to safe parks, playgrounds, and indoor and outdoor recreational facilities.
Conclusions of the Let's Move Task Force
The Let's Move Task Force is optimistic about the strategies and tactics outlined in the report. They believe these strategies should achieve the goal of solving the problem of childhood obesity within a generation.
They acknowledge that it will be no small task and to succeed will require action by parents, teachers and health care providers along with leaders in government and industry. The next step is to turn the ideas into action.
The full report, Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity in a Generation from The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity is available at the Let's Move website for download.
Kirsti A. Dyer - Kirsti A. Dyer MD, MS, FT is a respected physician, health educator, professor, author and lecturer.
