Preventing Obesity in Kids and Teens

1
Preventing Obesity in Kids and Teens

• Alicia Moag-Stahlberg, MS, RD
• Executive Director

2
Root Causes Poor Nutrition and Inactivity

• Sedentary lifestyle
• leisure time
• excess TV
• other screen time activities
• Food Culture
• availability and pricing
• desire for convenience
• fewer family meals
• more fast food/take out
• snacking behaviors
• increased access to low nutrient foods/beverages

• Other Cultural Issues
• urbanization
• overscheduled Families
• poor parental skills
• peer pressures
• time pressures
• increased disposable income

3
Spectrum of Prevention
Influence policy and legislation
Change organizational practices
Foster coalitions and networks
Promote community education
Educate providers

• Strengthen
• individual knowledge and skills

4
The Wake-Up Call

• Recognition that overweight and obesity is a
  major public health concern.
• Encourages environmental changes that can
  ultimately lead to prevention.
• Calls for the development of private-public
  partnerships to help implement the vision.

5
Action for Healthy Kids Approach

• Help the Greatest Number of Childrenby Changing
  their School Environment

6
Why Schools ?

• Significant influencing environment
• Children develop lifelong habits in school
• Control over daytime hours food access
• Schools provide equal access
• Feeding programs in place
• Provides links to parents and community
• Current practices are not helping and in some
  cases are exacerbating the problem
• Good nutrition and fitness positive effects on
  learning

7
Action for Healthy Kids Vision

• Schools provide an environment that fosters the
  development of lifelong habits of good nutrition
  and physical activity for all children
• This is aimed at
• Slowing the rate of increase in overweight and
  obesity,
• Leading to the prevention of overweight and
  obesity in youth, and
• Enhancing the learning potential of each child.

8
Need For A Multi-level Approach
AFHK is a National Movement
gt 4200 volunteers
52 National Partner Organizations Government
Agencies
51 State Teams
9
What We Do

• Infrastructure to support change
• National attention to the issues and solutions
• Stimulus for change at state, district and local
  level
• Resources to make that change possible

10
Three Major Thrusts

• Educate about how nutrition and physical activity
  impact health and academic performance.
• Improve childrens eating habits by increasing
  access to nutritious foods and integrating
  nutrition education into curriculum.
• Increase childrens physical activity by adding
  or improving physical education courses, recess,
  after school programs, and co-curricular programs.

11
Motivate, Educate, Activate

• Help school community to set priorities
• Establish strategies and actions
• Build on existing successful programs, policies
• Identify gaps
• Develop initiatives that fill those gaps
• Collaborate and cooperate

12
Stimulating Change at Building Level

• Demonstration projects
• Healthy vending pilots
• Breakfast programs
• Physical activity events/programs
• Student council/advocacy
• Parent outreach
• Peer-to-peer education
• Awards and mini-grants
• Student Health Advisory Councils

13
Resources for Changing the School
www.ActionForHealthyKids.org
14
Best-Practice Criteria

• Two levels of criteria provide a comprehensive
  tool for developing and evaluating an approach's
  effectiveness and its adoptability
• Essential Criteria
• Criteria represent level of standards that all
  approaches should strive for
• Critical Criteria
• Criteria addresses the adoptability of an approach

15
After School Program ReCharge!
16
Your Call To Action!

• Actions need to target environment and policy
  changes to support individual change
• Health providers have influencer power and need
  to engage in the conversation with individuals
  and schools
• Moms number one role model for kids
• Parents have significant influence power on
  schools
• We need deliberate, persistent action and
  patience