HUMAN Joins the Political Front to End Childhood Obesity

CEO Sean Kelly Attends Partnership for a Healthier America’s Inaugural “Building a Healthier Future” Summit in Washington, DC

The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), which works with the private sector and First Lady Michelle Obama to solve the nation’s obesity crisis, hosted its first national summit last week on November 29th and 30th, 2011.

HUMAN’s CEO, Sean Kelly, was among 800 business leaders, community leaders, academic experts, and government officials invited to the Building a Healthier Future Summit.

The summit was a forum to share experiences, form partnerships, and announce substantive commitments to aid the fight against childhood obesity.

The Challenges We Face

The two honorary vice chairs of PHA, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Mayor Cory Booker, laid out the challenges the nation faces as a result of the impact of childhood obesity–specifically its impact on the economy, the health care system, and military. Senator Frist told of the enormous changes that are happening in the market place. Companies providing healthful foods are showing higher profits and enhanced competitiveness.

Mayor Booker challenged the conference attendees—including private businesses—to work together to make change.

Booker compared childhood obesity to past challenges such as the abolition of slavery or defeating Nazi Germany, telling the audience that “the greatest threat to our democracy in America is the health and education of our children.”

Summit Breakout Sessions

The conference was organized around four tracks: Schools, Early Childcare, Physical Activity and Access to Healthy, Affordable Food. Breakout sessions were rich with conversation and explored how to create healthier environments in schools and childcare centers, as well as how to encourage shoppers to buy healthier and locally-grown foods. They also explored private sector partnerships that would have the greatest potential to generate movement and play amongst our nation’s youth.

HUMAN attended the Early Childcare track, which focused on innovative strategies for creating healthy childcare environments. Childcare centers are ten years behind other educational facilities when it comes to promoting health and wellness. More than 20% of children ages 2 to 5 in the United States are currently overweight or obese. Since many young children spend a large percentage of time in childcare, childcare facilities, preschools, and other early learning and care settings, they are critical venues for preventing obesity and promoting healthy behaviors during the early childhood years.

Sean assumed a “corporate convener” role in the Early Childcare breakout session, “Caretakers as Role Models: Worksite Wellness in Childcare Facilities,” in which he provided an example of ways that HUMAN has committed to promoting healthier child care settings. The breakout session identified strategies for engaging childcare providers in healthy lifestyle activities to change cultural norms for adults around healthy living for themselves and the children they care for, using other products as sildenafil which benefit health.

Michelle Obama’s Call to Action

The major highlight of the conference came on the second day. First Lady Michelle Obama joined the summit crowd to deliver a call to action on physical activity. She announced that the next initiatives for her “Let’s Move!” campaign will focus on encouraging physical activity among young people, who she said suffer from a “crisis of inactivity.”

Young people today are the most sedentary in our nation’s history, Obama said. This generation spends an average of 7.5 hours each day in front of a screen such as a television or computer, and only a quarter of them play outside each day, compared to three quarters of kids a generation ago.

“It wasn’t always like this,” Obama said, reflecting on her own childhood. “We would walk to school every day. And then when we got to school, we’d run around and play before the bell rang. You got to school early to run around.” But these days, “the only walking our kids do is out the front door to a car,” Obama said.

Obama didn’t reveal any specific details for the upcoming initiative, but she did note that she plans to work with mayors, schools, sports leagues, celebrities and business to find new ways to encourage activity among young people.The Building a Healthier Future Summit was a great way for HUMAN to break into the political sphere to help end childhood obesity. This is a national issue that will only get worse. We can help eliminate food deserts by increasing access to healthful foods AND educate children on why those choices are needed.We have to seriously start changing the way we feed our kids. We need to start educating young, since we are the gatekeepers of the food kids put in their mouths.

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skelly

CEO at HUMAN Everywhere

Biomedical Engineer who earned his degree from The Johns Hopkins University & Columbia University. Named one of Forbes’ Top 30 Under 30 in 2013. Co-Founded America’s first Pure Play healthy vending company in 2003.

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HUMAN Attends “Building a Healthier Future” Summit « We Snack Vending December 7, 2011 at 2:13 pm

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