Preventing Overweight and Obesity - Experts Target Child Obesitym

In April 2005 the American Heart Association (AHA) launched a new initiative aimed at combating childhood obesity. The AHA initiative provides recommendations specifically directed at the promotion of physical activity in schools. A January 2006, conference, "Obesity, Lifestyle, and Cardiovascular Disease Symposium" addressed topics ranging from the contribution of genetics, the environment, patterns and trends in portion sizes, factors affecting portion control, and the effects of macronutrients on calorie intake, to behavioral issues in children and adults. The initiative intends to equip healthcare providers with effective tools, enabling them to bring to bear the most timely behavioral research findings for their patients.

The AHA also is acting to enhance existing programs for their children such as "Choose to Move," an Internet-based program that helps individuals add activity to their daily lives and provides nutrition education, and the nutritional components of "Search Your Heart," a faith-based program that brings health information to churches nationwide. It is intensifying the educational messages on nutrition and physical activity already received each year by the four million elementary and middle school students who participate in such AHA programs as "Jump Rope for Heart" or shoot "Hoops for Heart."

The AHA is preparing a new book that will provide usable information and advice for people who need to lose weight and then maintain their healthy weight and fit lifestyle. The Heart Association also is publishing an Obesity Sourcebook in conjunction with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Sourcebook will provide the same level of solid science information to the public, health-care professionals, and policymakers that the AHA annual statistical update has provided for many years. The AHA also has undertaken collaborative efforts with the CDC, the American Cancer Society, and the American Diabetes Association. The product of this collaboration, "Everyday Choices" emphasizes eating well, exercising, remaining tobacco-free, and seeing a physician regularly to help prevent heart disease and stroke, as well as diabetes and some forms of cancer (Robert H. Eckel et al., "America's Children a Critical Time for Prevention," Circulation, vol. 111, April 19, 2005).

In a related effort, AHA president Robert Eckel, Nickelodeon Networks president Herb Scannell, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, and former president Bill Clinton have joined forces to lead a ten-year campaign urging children to choose healthy foods and be more physically active. Clinton, who underwent quadruple coronary bypass surgery in September 2004 and a follow-up procedure in March 2005, appears in public service announcements and participated in a November 2005 town hall forum devoted to childhood obesity moderated by news anchor Linda Ellerbee. President Clinton explained that he became more concerned about children's weight problems after his heart surgery, and conceded that he was overweight as a child and struggled to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight throughout his life. Interviewed on Good Morning America (May 3, 2005), the former president asserted, "I think the consequences are enormous. You have the onset of adult diabetes in children now, plainly because of their eating habits, aggravated by the lack of exercise. We've got to change the eating habits of America's young people."