Childhood Obesity Program Area

RWJF is committed to tackling one of the most urgent threats to the health of our children and families—childhood obesity. Our goal is to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015.

Creating a Culture of Movement

February 1, 2009 | Commentary

Congressional action is needed to pass legislation that will help create a culture of movement in schools and workplaces. Congressman Wamp of Tennessee is sponsoring several bills aimed at creating policies to increase physical activity in these crucial sites.

Active Living Research and the Movement for Healthy Communities

February 1, 2009 | Commentary

The Active Living Research program has made an important start in engaging underserved communities in efforts to increase physical activity on a population level. However, much remains to be done future efforts must focus on a bottom-up approach that will engage community members from the outset.

Partnerships for Progress in Active Living

January 1, 2012 | Commentary

This special issue of Health & Place highlights some of the research studies on active living research that were presented at the 2011 Active Living Research Annual Conference that should be useful for researchers, practitioners and advocates.

Commentary on Active Living

February 1, 2009 | Commentary

This commentary highlights the need for a shift in health promotion research, from identifying priorities to implementing them. Pekka Puska, M.D., Ph.D., argues that health researchers must drive social change by implementing theory-based policies to diffuse health innovations.

Challenging Our Comfort Levels

February 1, 2009 | Commentary

In 1999, when the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation decided to invest heavily in prevention and population health, the seeds of the Active Living Research (ALR) program were sowed. The ALR has served as a model of public health research, through engagement on multiple policy and research levels, and in its commitment to producing research findings that will shape policies.

Essential Nexus

February 1, 2009 | Commentary

Active-living researchers must continue to press for more synthesis between policy and policy-makers and research related to physical activity. Key areas of action are to involve numerous jurisdictions from the outset and to demonstrate that health is a stakeholder in a variety of realms.

Active Living Research and Public Health

February 1, 2009 | Commentary

The Centers for Disease Control is committed to collaborating with the Active Living Research program and other programs related to improving activity levels on a population scale. Although promising areas for change are coming into focus, significant improvements in how much physical activity Americans engage in have yet to be made.

Translating Research into Public Policy

January 1, 2009 | Commentary

Researchers can team with advocates to be influential at four crucial steps in the policy development process, according to long-time public health advocate Harold Goldstein. This commentary was prepared for the 2008 Active Living Research Conference.

Can We Achieve Evidence-Based Policy and Practice on Active Travel?

January 1, 2009 | Commentary

In this commentary prepared for the 2008 Active Living Research Conference, Philip Insall of Sustrans, a UK nonprofit organization, shares his insights into how research can be used to shape policies that encourage people to travel on foot or by bicycle.

Where Different Worlds Collide

January 1, 2009 | Commentary

Researchers need to think from the viewpoint of practitioners and policy-makers to have a real world impact, according to Rob Moodie of the University of Melbourne in a commentary prepared for the 2008 Active Living Research Conference.