View a list of RWJF staff working on Childhood Obesity.
Our strategy
Childhood obesity is a serious public health epidemic:
- During the past four decades, obesity rates have soared among all age groups, increasing more than four times among children ages 6 to 11.
- Today, more than a third of children and adolescents are overweight or obese. That's more than 23 million kids and teenagers.
If we don't act to reverse this alarming trend, we're in danger of raising the first generation of American children who will live sicker and die younger than the generation before them. Preventing obesity during childhood is critical, because habits that last into adulthood frequently are formed during youth. Research shows that obese adolescents have up to an 80 percent chance of becoming overweight or obese adults.
RWJF has developed three integrated strategies to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic: evidence, action and advocacy.
Evidence. Investments in building the evidence base will help ensure that the most promising efforts are replicated throughout the nation.
The Foundation's major research efforts in this area—Active Living Research, Healthy Eating Research and Bridging the Gap—are contributing to the nation's collective knowledge about the changes to policies and to community and school environments that are most effective in increasing physical activity and improving nutrition for kids.
RWJF also seeks to evaluate innovative approaches under way in states, schools and communities across the country.
Action. Our action strategy for communities and schools focuses on engaging partners at the local level, building coalitions, and promoting the most promising approaches.
The Foundation is working with The Food Trust, a Philadelphia-based advocacy organization whose mission is to ensure that everyone has access to affordable, nutritious food. The Food Trust has achieved tremendous success in bringing supermarkets back to underserved communities in Pennsylvania, and we're working together to replicate those results nationwide.
We're also working closely with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation (a partnership of the American Heart Association and William J. Clinton Foundation) to support its efforts to improve nutrition, physical activity and staff wellness in schools nationwide.
Advocacy. As we learn from our evidence and action strategies, we share results by educating leaders and investing in advocacy, building a broad national constituency for childhood obesity prevention.
RWJF supported the National Governors Association when Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee designated wellness in schools, homes, and workplaces as his Chairman's Initiative for 2005-2006.
Through our Leadership for Healthy Communities initiative, we work closely with national organizations that represent elected and appointed officials—such as the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors—to educate their members about successful approaches to increasing physical activity and healthy eating among kids. Our goal is to support leaders and decision-makers in their efforts to create healthier states, counties and cities.
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What We Don't Fund
- RWJF is dedicated to improving access to healthy choices by changing policies, environments and social norms. Therefore, we generally do not support projects that provide only information or education.
- Because our emphasis is on preventing obesity, we do not invest in research regarding medical or surgical treatment of obesity.
- We do not accept unsolicited proposals for work related to childhood obesity.
We follow Foundation-wide guidelines for what we don't fund.
Last update: April 2007
For more information on the issues RWJF seeks to address, download our complete overview.