By Crystal D. Swann
February 15, 2010

First Lady Michelle Obama launched her legacy initiative – Lets Move! – a campaign focused on ending childhood obesity in this generation February 9. During a White House event, the First Lady outlined her strategy for helping this generation of children become healthier and more active. “These words — ‘overweight’ and ‘obese’ — they don’t tell the full story,” Obama said when discussing why she is making this her signature issue as First Lady. “This isn’t just about inches and pounds or how our kids look. It’s about how our kids feel and how they feel about themselves. It’s about the impact we’re seeing on every aspect of their lives.”

With one in three American children overweight or obese, putting them at higher risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and other illnesses and billions of dollars spent every year treating obesity-related conditions, public health experts say today’s kids are on track to have a shorter lifespan than their parents.

Let’s Move! is aimed at solving the childhood obesity problem in a generation, so that children born today can reach adulthood at a healthy weight.

Joining First Lady Obama were Somerville (MA) Mayor Joseph Curtatone and Hernando (MS) Mayor Chip Johnson.

Curtatone’s "Shape Up Somerville," an initiative that is aimed at improving school food offerings and increasing children’s daily physical activity, is recognized nationally as a model program for municipal governments. The initiative, started in 2004 by Curtatone, is about “engaging community members of all ages and backgrounds, and from all sectors of community life, to transform the health of our community. Our guiding principles [Somerville] have been eat smart, play hard, live well,” said Curtatone. “Every policy decision is influenced by these tenets,” he added.

“One of the easiest and most important public policy changes was requiring developers and businesses to build sidewalks when building subdivisions or redesigning businesses. We’ve put in miles and miles of sidewalks, and the people of Hernando haven’t had to pay for any of it,” stated Johnson. The mayor also described how he established a soccer league in his town by leasing a parcel of land from a local resident for $1 a year.

During the Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting in January, the First Lady asked the mayors to join her in her national campaign and praised the work that mayors have done across the nation to combat childhood obesity. “The idea here is very simple: to put in place common sense, innovative solutions that empower families and communities to make healthy decisions for their kids,” stated Obama.

Major components of the Let’s Move! Campaign include:

• The working with food manufacturers and retailers to make food labels more “customer-friendly.” The nonalcoholic beverage industry said Tuesday it would start putting calorie information on the front of its products.

• The American Academy of Pediatrics is encouraging doctors to monitor children’s body mass index or BMI during each child wellness visit. BMI, which is a calculation of height and weight, is used to measure body fat.

• Serving healthier food in schools. The administration is asking lawmakers to invest $10 billion over the next decade to give schools more money to make needed changes. Additionally, the leading food providers including Sodexo and Aramark have agreed to participate by offering menu options that include more fruit, juice, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat and fat-free milk in reimbursable school lunches.

• Offering $400 million in tax breaks to encourage grocery stores to move into “food deserts,” areas with limited supplies of nutritious food, and spending $5 million more to establish and promote farmers’ markets, with the goal of eliminating “food deserts” in seven years.

• Encouraging children to exercise more; an hour a day is recommended.

• A Web site with tools and resources - http://www.letsmove.gov/.

Additionally, to support this effort, Obama announced the creation of an independent foundation – The Partnership for a Healthier America – to serve as a nonpartisan convener across the private, non-profit and public sectors to accelerate the implementation of the campaign’s overall goals of ending childhood obesity within a generation.

Conference of Mayors President Burnsville (MN) Mayor Elizabeth B. Kautz issued a statement praising the First Lady’s campaign and pledging the support of the nations mayors to achieve her goals. She cited "the proven track record" of the Conference of Mayors for holding summits and sharing best practices for many years, and pledged to provide the Conference of Mayors- best information about mayoral leadership on the issue as they go forward – totally supporting the new national campaign.

Earlier in the day, President Barack Obama signed an executive memorandum setting up a interagency task force that includes members of his cabinet and other officials, who have 90 days to draw up a master plan to combat the scourge of childhood obesity.