The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation said Wednesday it would spend $500 million over the next five years to combat an "epidemic" of childhood obesity.
This can only be interpreted as good news for those of us who are saddened by the fattening of America's children. Where is the money going?
To halt a trend building over the past four decades, the foundation is offering to fund programs that focus on improving access to affordable healthy foods or on how to increase physical activity in schools and communities
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's new initiative will build on successful programs, such as Arkansas' trendsetting efforts that included sending home obesity report cards to warn parents of overweight kids' health risks.
This sounds promising, and not just another lame project designed to be a self-congratulatory, self-promoting, touchy-feely-look-I'm-on-the-Today-Show pile of claptrap.
The foundation wants to pay for projects that have the potential of being done on a broad scale and meshing with other efforts. It will emphasize efforts to reach children facing the greatest risk for obesity and related health problems: poor blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
These could include low-tech solutions such as the "walking school bus," where parents go house-to-house, gathering children and escorting them to school, giving them exercise as well as instruction on how to cross the street...
I applaud the Foundation for committing so much to this extremely important health problem, but if I might add just two cents more to this prodigious sum:
"Parents - please take a hard and honest look at your eating habits. If they are not in line with what experts recommend to maintain a healthy weight, have the courage and the will power to change your behavior. It can be done - just ask anyone who used to eat with reckless disregard of the consequences of becoming obese."
Thank you for your time. I shall now get on my stairclimber and give the battle cry of the 34th Infantry in the fight for Leyte Island, Philippines, as coined by Colonel Aubrey S. Newman on October 24, 1944. I pray you can hear me as clearly as Colonel Newman's men heard him.
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Newsweek had a really good couple of articles on exercise and your brain (and benefits of exercise in general) a couple of weeks ago. If you didn't catch it, here's the links:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17662246/site/newsweek/
They also had a piece about MDs following their own advice:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17662265/site/newsweek/
And breast cancer and exercise:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17662260/site/newsweek/
"It will emphasize efforts to reach children facing the greatest risk for obesity and related health problems: poor blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders."
Only in America are the poor at greatest risk of being obese!
On a more serious note, I don't think that it's poverty that is the issue here. Poverty tends to be a reflection of poorly educated parents, and that is what results in obesity.
are they going to serve meals with the meetings? maybe some those rich chocolate chip cookies the drug company reps are always able to find.
Not to be a downer, but this seems unlikely to get to the core of the matter. Craig, you have hit on it in the 2nd to last paragraph; unless parents can set good examples and truly make a lifestyle change. I do see some hope in making healthy food more affordable. Here's hoping I'm wrong about the rest.
I would like to mention that I don't think that education has anything (directly) to do with obesity as the one poster noted. Even those who are uneducated know what foods are bad and those that are good as well as knowing the importance of excersize to stay in shape. However, poverty does have something to do with it; fresh food is expensive, gym memberships are expensive as are many sports you would like your children to get involved in. Calorie dense prepared food, lack of time for food preparation for single parents, and lack of quality fresh food in poor neighborhoods are also factors.
Thanks for mentioning the study; it's good that at least groups are out there trying to figure out what works.