New Alliance Outlines Key Steps for Fighting Childhood Obesity
What do you get when you combine the Bill Clinton Foundation with three leading medical organizations,anumberof large insurers and several well-known corporations?
The answer is the Alliance Healthcare Initiative*, a first-of-a-kind national collaboration designed to fight childhood obesity. AHI is the latest effort from The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, an organization created in 2005 by the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation.
The goal of AHI is to help nearly 1 million children in year one and up to 6.2 million at the end of three years. (The alarming fact is that number represents only about 25% of all the overweight kids in America.) Doctors and registered dietitians will be reimbursed for providing ongoing health care and nutritional counseling to overweight kids in seventeen states. Employees of participating companies also will have access to the program.
Good Health Starts At Home
A downloadable brochure for home use provides tips that kids can work on to achieve and maintain optimum health. Kids and parents will find suggestions such as the following, in five key areas of healthy behavior:
1. Get 1 hour or more of physical activity each day.
Double Time: When watching TV at home, do jumping jacks, pushups or crunches during commercial breaks.
2. Get 9 hours sleep each night.
Dream Makeover: Make your children’s bedrooms the perfect places to sleep and relax. Keep them cool, quiet and dark. You might even want to get eyeshades or blackout curtains. Let in bright light in the morning to help them wake up.
3. Only 1-2 hours of “screen time” per day (TV, computers, games)
No TV Dinners: Turn off the TV during mealtime - and take turns talking about the day.
4. Eat fruits and vegetables at every meal.
Clean the Greens: Let kids wash fruits and vegetables before cooking or eating.
5. Drink only water, low fat (1%) or fat-free milk and 100% juice.
Eat Your Water: Fruits and vegetables are actually good at replacing fluids. Fruits like grapes, watermelon, oranges or cantaloupe are full of water. So are veggies like lettuce , celery and cucumbers.
The brochure is available at:
www.healthiergeneration.org
Click on the Parents tab.
In addition, AHA says, “the Alliance will positively affect the places that can make a difference to a child’s health: homes, schools, restaurants, doctor’s offices, and the community.”
Healthy Schools Program
• Increasing opportunities for students to exercise and play.
• Putting healthy foods and beverages in vending machines and cafeterias.
• Providing resources for teachers and staff to become healthy role models.
Industry Program
• Influencing restaurants and snack companies to make substantially healthier
meals, drinks and snacks for kids.
Kids' Movement
• The empowerME campaign is inspiring kids to make healthy behavior
changes and become advocates and leaders for healthy eating and physical
activity. Kids can find out how to get involved at www.empowerme2b.org
Healthcare Program
• Giving tools to healthcare providers so that they can better diagnose, prevent
and treat obesity.
*Alliance Healthcare Initiative participants: The William J Clinton Foundation, the American Heart Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Dietetic Association, Aetna, WellPoint, Blue Cross of North Carolina and Massachusetts, PepsiCo, Owens Corning, Paychex.
The WELLBEING™ is published monthly by HRMS. Information in The WELLBEING™ is intended as general health information and should not replace medical advice or professional care. Please direct questions or comments to The WELLBEING™, 1847 West Jefferson Avenue, Naperville, Illinois 60540.