Let's Move the Needle on Childhood Obesity

About Us

Let's Move the Needle is a movement of business, community and government leaders in Northern Virginia who have joined a regional coalition to actively engage the Northern Virginia community in providing access to information about the important topic of childhood obesity. Click here for contact information.

Thanks to everyone
who attended

2nd Annual Let's Move the Needle on Childhood Obesity:
A Community Call to Action

Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Mason Inn,
George Mason University
4352 Mason Pond Drive, Fairfax, VA, 22030

Inova Health System and The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia have once again partnered to convene stakeholders from the entire Northern Virginia region on April 19, 2012 at our Let’s Move the Needle on Childhood Obesity: a Community Call to Action event. This event is a call to action which aims to move the needle on childhood obesity by actively engaging the Northern Virginia Community and sharing best practices on how to encourage more activity and better nutrition for our children. The event highlights people who are making a difference with programs that work.

Thank you for joining us in helping to address this critical community need. With your help, we can move the needle on childhood obesity in Northern Virginia.

*The Inova Health System Foundation has established an incentive program for recipients of SNAP benefits (formally food stamps) to purchase fresh, local foods at select farmer's markets in Northern Virginia. Shoppers using their Virginia EBT card at participating markets will receive up to $10 in matching funds from Inova for SNAP purchases at the market.

General Resources

95210 for Health
Northern Virginia Healthy Kids Coalition (NVHKC) resources may be found at www.tippingthescales.net.

Buy Fresh, Buy Local
Information about local farmer's markets throughout Northern Virginia. Sign up for a free bumper sticker or "Veggie Passport" sticker game for your kids!

Childhood Obesity: A Resource List for Educators and Researchers
A publication of the Food and Nutrition Information Center (USDA)

Partnership for a Healthier America
The Partnership for a Healthier America will serve as a partner to Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" initiative by linking and mobilizing the private sector, foundations, thought leaders, media, and local communities to action and further the goals of curbing childhood obesity within a generation.

PreventObesity.net
Driven by a belief that technology offers an opportunity to tap the talents, creativity, expertise and energy of potential collaborators, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) launched PreventObesity.net to harness the power of online networks to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic.

Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities
A national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation helping dozens of communities across the country reshape their environments to support healthy living and prevent childhood obesity.

WeCan!
A national childhood obesity prevention program.

Let's Move
America’s move to raise a healthier generation of kids.

National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research
A catalogue of existing surveillance systems containing data relevant to childhood obesity research. It includes local, state, and national systems that provide data at multiple levels.

Leadership for Healthy Communities
A local and state guide to strengthen physical activity and healthy eating opportunities for youth.

www.health.gov
A listing of multi-agency health initiatives and activities of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and other federal departments and agencies.

Action for Healthy Kids
Action for Healthy Kids® is a nonprofit and largest volunteer network fighting childhood obesity and undernourishment. It helps schools become healthier places and teaching kids to eat right, be active every day and be ready to learn.

Childhood Obesity Resource Links
American Academy for Pediatrics a resource for health professionals, families and communities.

Kaiser Permanente Kids
Kids in dynamic shape.

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Faith Based Communities

Let's Move! for Community Leaders
Neighborhood and faith-based organizations are well positioned to initiate and coordinate activities that encourage healthy living and well-being. Trusted leaders in communities and congregations can empower families and communities to make better choices to improve the health of our nation's children.

NVHKC Tools for Faith Communities
This package of tools can help promote healthy habits in places of worship.

Inova Congregational Health Partnership
Inova Congregational Health Partnership collaborates with faith communities, non-profit organizations and government agencies throughout Northern Virginia to further mutual goals for community health and wholeness.

US Department of Health and Human Services
Toolkits for faith-based and community organizations.

Interfaith Health Program
Promotes vital learning at the intersecting boundaries where faith and health overlap, merge, and emerge transformed.

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Child Care Centers

NVHKC Tools for Child Care Centers
Tools to promote healthy habits in your child care center.

Best-Practice Guidelines for Physical Activity

Guidelines from the American Association of Pediatrics.

My Pyramid for Preschoolers
USDA Food and Nutrition Services.

What Can We Do To Prevent Childhood Obesity?

ZERO TO THREE is a national, nonprofit organization that informs, trains, and supports professionals, policymakers, and parents in their efforts to improve the lives of infants and toddlers.

Let's Move! Child Care
Child care providers have a powerful opportunity to instill healthy choices that could help prevent childhood obesity from the start. With about 12 million babies and young children in child care nationwide, we can’t afford to wait.

Color Me Healthy
Color Me Healthy is a program developed to reach children ages four and five with fun, interactive learning opportunities on physical activity and healthy eating. It is designed to stimulate all of the senses of young children: touch, smell, sight, sound, and, of course, taste. Through the use of color, music, and exploration of the senses, Color Me Healthy teaches children that healthy food and physical activity are fun.

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Business

Employee Health Resources

These resources help to promote the 9-5-2-1-0 for Health lifestyle. Improve the health of employees and their families by promoting the 9-5-2-1-0 for Health message and support the 9-5-2-1-0 for Health behaviors in an employee health program.

Childhood Obesity It's Everyone's Business
A website providing employers with a range of options with realitively easy implimentation in their own company. The action-oriented toolkit is built around four key levers available to most or all employers - benefits, employee education, on-site facilities and philanthropic opportunities. Throughout the toolkit, employer case studies and examples illustrate how strategies in place may be modified, expanded or marketed to promote healthy weight for children.

American Heart Association
Start! Fit-friendly companies are recognized by the American Heart Association as employers who go above and beyond when it comes to their employees' health.

CDC Lean Works
"CDC's LEAN Works! Leading Employees to Activity and Nutrition" is a free web resource offering interactive tools and evidence-based resources to design effective worksite obesity prevention and control programs. This includes an obesity cost calculator to estimate how much obesity is costing your company and how much savings your company could reap with different workplace interventions.

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Schools

NVHKC Tools for Schools
This package of tools can help you to promote healthy habits in your school.

iPATH (Inova Partnering Actively Towards Health)
Community outreach program takes a fun, action-filled approach to introducing teens from diverse backgrounds to exercise and better eating habits.

Inova's Partnership for Healthy Kids
PHK's Prevention program works with community partners to provide health education activities to children, parents and educators.

Let's Move for Schools
Principals, teachers and parents can help make schools healthier places to learn by providing quality nutrition, integrating physical activity during the day and teaching children about the importance of embracing a healthy, active lifestyle.

National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion: Healthy Youth
Coordinated school health is recommended by CDC as a strategy for improving students' health and learning in our nation’s schools. This page outlines the rationale and goals for coordinated school health and provides a model framework for planning.

My Healthy School
Provides teachers, administrators and parents with action plans for creating greener, healthier, more socially responsible schools and children. Educators have the power to create change, and MyHealthySchool.com aims to provide the necessary tools. As a result of this combined effort, children will learn how to make decisions that benefit their communities, the environment and their own lives.

KidsHealth in the Classroom
KidsHealth in the Classroom offers educators free health curriculum materials for all grades and subject areas. Each Teacher's Guide includes discussion questions, activities, and reproducible handouts and quizzes – all aligned to national health education standards.

HealthierUS School Challenge
The HealthierUS School Challenge (HUSSC) is a voluntary initiative established in 2004 to recognize those schools participating in the National School Lunch Program that have created healthier school environments through promotion of nutrition and physical activity.

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Policy Makers/Government Officials

Let's Move! Resources for mayors and local officials
Elected officials offer the unique ability to spur action and bring communities together in solving the obesity challenge. Mayors and municipal officials are encouraged to adopt a long-term, sustainable, and holistic approach to fighting childhood obesity. Let’s Move! recognizes that every city is different, and every town will require its own distinct approach to the issue.

Making the Connection

Making the Connection: Linking Policies to Prevent Climate Change and Childhood Obesity outlines policy interventions that could help mitigate climate change and could also reverse the childhood obesity epidemic.

National Association of Counties
A policy brief by the National Association of Counties outlining ways county health, park and recreation departments can work together to address childhood obesity. It provides local examples of how these types of county-level interdepartmental partnerships have effectively promoted healthy eating and active living.

National Conference of State Legislatures
Healthy Communities: New Opportunities for Promoting Health
is a legisbrief by the National Conference of State Legislatures. It provides an overview of state and federal action to prevent childhood obesity and discusses new opportunities for obesity prevention.

Connecting Active Living Research and Public Policy

National and international organizations recommend creation of environments that support physical activity where people live, work, play, study, and travel. Policy changes can lead to activity, supportive environments and incentives.

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Families/Community

NVHKC Tools for Community Planners
Tools tools to help promote healthy habits in your community.

The Built Environment and Health: 11 Profiles of Neighborhood Transformation
Highlights neighborhood-level changes to build an environment that can have a positive influence on the health of community residents, especially in low-income communities.

Wegmans: Eat Well, Live Well
Educational videos, ideas for healthy cooking with kids, recipes, and nutrition information.

Let's Move: Parents
Parents and caregivers can set a great example for the whole family by creating a healthy environment at home.

Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Washington
Today’s youth face overwhelming obstacles that affect their health and well-being. BGCGW gives youth the tools — and the strength — to engage in positive behaviors and good decision-making. Programs focus on building self-esteem, dealing with drug and violence prevention, teen pregnancy prevention, fitness, wellness, and disease prevention.

BGCGW helps Club members set personal goals and establish a foundation to live as self-sufficient, healthy, and wise adults.

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Healthcare Professionals

95210 for Health
A package of tools helping healthcare professionals promote healthy habits in their practices.

Let's Move in the Clinic
An initiative to encourage health care providers to make a clinical commitment to measuring BMI and counseling patients about optimal nutrition and physical activity.

American Academy of Pediatrics
This site brings awareness to the serious health problem of overweight children and childhood obesity. It empowers pediatricians and families to take action in their homes, offices and communities to prevent childhood obesity. It also supports pediatricians, families and community advocates in improving the health status of children who are already overweight and obese.

Obesity Prevention Project Toolkits and Resources
The Obesity Prevention project offers many resources for physician champions. Current toolkits and resources include school presentation kit, a speaker's bureau manual and various PowerPoint presentations.

We Can!®
We Can!® for healthcare professionals recognizes the important relationship of health professionals, parents and families.

Bright Futures
Bright Future guidelines provide background to effectively use their tools and resource kit. The kit helps providers carry out guidelines throroughly and intuitively. The materials can be used to adapt the materials to meet the needs of individual practices and to ensure complete care is delivered to parents.

The kit is being released on CD and provides questionnaires, forms, handouts and other tools for Bright Futures well-child visits. These visits are for children from pernatal age to 21.

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Contact Us

Northern Virginia Healthy Kids Coalition

2700 Prosperity Ave, Suite 100
Fairfax, VA 22031
(Map and interactive directions)

Rhonda Richardson, BSEd
Program Coordinator, Inova Health System
Northern Virginia Healthy Kids Coalition
703-698-2516
Fax: 703-698-2493
rhonda.richardson@inova.org

Whitney Strand, MPH
Program Coordinator, Inova Health System Northern Virginia Healthy Kids Coalition,
Partnership for Healthier Kids & iPATH – Inova Partnering Actively Toward Health
703-698-2564
Fax: 703-698-2556
whitney.strand@inova.org

In the news

President Barack Obama proclaims National Obesity Awareness Month
Read the press release at www.whitehouse.gov

Leesburg Patch: Inova and the Washington Mystics shake it up at "Get Moving" family fun event

VIDEO: First Lady Michelle Obama speaks about bringing healthy, affordable food to underserved communities

NVHKC Co-Chair Participates in Kaiser Permanente Childhood Obesity Conference

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Let's Move the Needle on Childhood Obesity

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