Foundations Striving to Prevent Obesity
March 19th, 2010
by
Lee-Lee Prina
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Health Affairs focuses on child obesity in its March 2010 issue and is publishing related content throughout the month of March, including a Web First article and Health Affairs Blog posts from Sen. Tom Harkin and Sen. Mike Enzi. For the GrantWatch Blog, we offer here a round-up of obesity funding news.
RWJF Program Director Testifies at Senate Hearing
Pediatrician Joe Thompson, who directs the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity, testified March 4, 2010 before the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. The hearing was on “Childhood Obesity: Beginning the Dialogue on Reversing the Epidemic.” Regina Benjamin, surgeon general of the United States, and Rashard Mendenhall, a running back for the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers, were among others testifying.
In Thompson’s prepared testimony, he pointed out that “obesity is becoming a problem at an earlier age, with 24.4 percent of children ages 2 to 5 already obese or overweight.” Thompson called upon school officials, government leaders, those working in the food and beverage industries, and parents to help prevent childhood obesity.
The RWJF’s center is based at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, in Little Rock. Thompson is a former Arkansas surgeon general. For more from Thompson, read “Arkansas Fights Fat: Translating Research into Policy to Combat Childhood and Adolescent Obesity,” an article he coauthored in Health Affairs (July/August 2006, free full-text).
Partnership for a Healthier America
In February 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama launched a nationwide campaign called Let’s Move to help achieve a national goal of solving the childhood obesity problem within a generation—so that children born in 2010 will be at a healthy weight when they become adults. As described in a White House press release, the campaign will combat this obesity epidemic using a comprehensive approach that builds on effective strategies and mobilizes resources from both the public and private sectors.
Partnership for a Healthier America, an independent foundation, was formed by the following grantmakers: the RWJF, California Endowment, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation; the Alliance for a Healthier Generation (affiliated with the American Heart Association and former President Bill Clinton’s foundation), Kaiser Permanente (see its blog post), and Nemours. The partnership will fill a unique niche, according to its Web site:
“Rather than award grants, engage in policy discussions or develop programmatic activities, the Partnership will concentrate on mobilizing leadership from across sectors and at every level to take action that can have a significant impact on organizational goals.”
An RWJF spokesperson told Health Affairs that the funders are now “exploring” what amount of money they “think will be needed to start and sustain the organization for the first several years,” and together they “will commit what’s needed,” he explained. Partnership for a Healthier America will look for new members in the months ahead, the release noted.
Key components of Let’s Move include helping parents to make healthy choices for their children and also teaching children how to make good choices; serving healthier food in schools; accessing healthy and affordable food (and getting rid of “food deserts”); and increasing children’s physical activity, the White House said. Read the Let’s Move blog.
Can Smartphones Help Kids Avoid Obesity?
Among recently awarded grants from the RWJF’s Project HealthDesign, in Rethinking the Power and Potential of Personal Health Records, researchers at San Francisco State University will “test the use of smartphones to manage the food choices and physical activity of 100 overweight teens from low-income neighborhoods in San Francisco,” says a March 2010 press release.
The two-year study will see if both youth obesity and depression can be prevented by using the phones. Researchers will focus on youth who are at risk for depression and are being treated for weight issues at a clinic in San Francisco. The $480,000, two-year grant to San Francisco State is one of five grants awarded by the RWJF to look at how observations of daily living (ODLs) when they are recorded by patients can improve the treatment of chronic medical problems. The researchers will provide frequent updates about their work via the Project HealthDesign blog. See descriptions of other projects.
Read what Steve Downs of the RWJF wrote on the Huffington Post about this new group of grants.
Selected Sampling of What Some Other Funders Are Doing
The Aetna Foundation announced in December 2009 that addressing the rising occurrence of obesity among U.S. residents (including children) will continue to be one of its three primary areas of focus, going forward in 2010. Topics, eligibility guidelines, and deadlines for the grant programs were posted on the foundation’s Web site 15 March 2010. The Aetna Foundation’s grant making in the area of obesity prevention will include policy, research, and project grants. The foundation also noted in an e-alert signed by its president, Anne C. Beal, that it will call upon its grantees to show public impact and benefits that result from the work it supports.
BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Foundation awarded a $478,000 to Eat Smart Move More South Carolina according to a December 2009 press release. The grant is for a two-year, research-based initiative that aims to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic in Colleton County, South Carolina. The grantee and the community will collaborate to implement a comprehensive action plan focused on many settings, such as schools, childcare providers, churches, and work sites. It is hoped that the action plan will serve as a model for communities throughout the state. The grantee “is a joint effort between state agencies, business and industry, health care organizations, schools, academia, community and a broad range of other stakeholders to capitalize [on] and leverage the different areas of expertise, skill and resources to combat obesity” in the state, said the release. Prevention of obesity is one of this Blues foundation’s priority funding areas.
Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit awarded a $200,000 grant to Los Angeles County for the Department of Public Health Child Obesity Prevention Project. Focused on ten cities in this big California county, the two-year project will include outreach to city and school officials, as well as community stakeholders, and will encourage cities and communities in the county to enact policy and/or environmental changes that will bring about healthy eating and active living. The California Endowment is also funding this project with a two-year, $100,000 grant.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation announced an investment of more than $32 million in Food and Community. The goal is to improve access to fresh food and physical activity for vulnerable children and their families via community-driven efforts and national projects, the November 2009 press release said. The three-year Food and Community program’s priorities include transforming school food systems as well as promoting active living and routine physical activities. Boston, Seattle/King County, and the Tohono O’odham Nation, in Arizona, are among the nine grantees.
March 2010 Health Affairs Issue on Child Obesity
This issue has received wide media coverage around the globe. Check out the table of contents and an introduction to its content by Susan Dentzer, editor-in-chief. Among the authors who published in this issue are Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Kelly D. Brownell of Yale University; Jonathan Klein of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and Debbie Chang of Nemours. The RWJF funded the issue. Full video and audio is available of the issue briefing with authors that was held in Washington, D.C. RWJF President and CEO Risa Lavizzo-Mourey offered opening remarks.
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