New report on ending childhood obesity

The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity has just released Solving the Childhood Obesity Problem Within a Generation, a collection of policy recommendations in four main areas:

• Early Childhood
• Empowering Parents and Caregivers
• Healthy Food in Schools
• Access to Healthy, Affordable Food
• Increasing Physical Activity.

The report makes a strong case that childhood obesity is a major problem that needs to be addressed immediately if we are to avoid serious consequences for future generations, and offers several concrete (and some unfortunately mushy) recommendations for addressing the issue.

While this report focuses almost exclusively on bigger-picture policy recommendations, it is easy to see the role that schools, youth-serving programs, youth workers, teachers, and even mentors can play in addressing the problem. It is a wake-up call for youth-serving institutions to serve healthy food, and for parents, teachers, and mentors to spend additional time teaching nutrition and healthy eating habits to young people. And by the end of the "physical activity" section, I realized that I'd love to see a recommendation that mentors and mentees engage in some kind of physical activity every other meeting! Every bit of effort helps...

So as a general discussion question: What are those of you in mentoring programs or other youth-serving environments doing to help combat childhood obesity? Are there any specific ways you can see mentors or mentoring programs helping with this over time? I'm curious to hear what you have to say...

If you want to read the full report, it can be downloaded at: http://www.letsmove.gov/tfco_fullreport_may2010.pdf