With the Arrival of Spring Comes Exciting Advancements in Child Care

Along with the long awaited arrival of spring has come the anticipated arrival of a number of policy advancements and opportunities to effect change in the field of obesity prevention in early education and child care settings.

An important opportunity for you to share your opinion is   through the First Lady’s Let’s Move Campaign.  Public comments on Let’s Move , due on Friday March 26^th, will be considered by the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, which is currently developing of a national action plan to address the childhood obesity epidemic. As experts in the field, we strongly encourage you to provide input supporting the need for multi - sector work in early care and education settings.

Just this morning, the Senate Agriculture Committee passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. This bill would reauthorize the Child Nutrition  Act and includes an additional $4.5 billion for federal nutrition programs over the next ten years. As experts in the field of obesity prevention in child care settings, your voice was heard. The bill includes  the following nutrition, physical activity and screen time provisions for the Child and Adult Care Food Program  that were introduced by Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)  in the Healthy Living Starts Early Act of 2010 :

· Requires the USDA to implement the recommendations for higher nutrition standards for meals, snacks and beverages served through CACFP to make them consistent with the most recent U.S. Dietary Guidelines;

· Provides  education and encouragement to participating child care centers and homes to provide children with healthy meals and snacks, daily opportunities for physical activity, and to limit screen time;

· Increases training, technical assistance and tools (such as a handbook)  for child care providers,

· Authorizes ongoing research on the nutrition, health and wellness practices, as well as the barriers and facilitators to CACFP participation, in child care settings;

· Requires interagency coordination  to strengthen the role of child care licensing in supporting good nutrition, health and wellness and maximizing the value of CACFP; and

· Reduces   administrative burdens for CACFP sponsors and providers.

Some relevant research announcements from last week are below.   Please feel free to share others.

·         Healthy Eating Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), released grant opportunities to support research on environmental and policy strategies with strong potential to promote healthy eating among children to prevent childhood obesity. The full call for proposals can be found at www.healthyeatingresearch.org.

·        Communities Putting Prevention to Work Initiative Grants, which amount to $372 Million dollars in the form of obesity prevention and wellness programs, were released by Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services. The cities, towns, rural areas, and tribal communities across America who will be receiving grants can be found HERE.

Once again, we appreciate all of your efforts to combat childhood obesity through policy and practice changes in early care and education settings. Please send us any updates from your work or additional news relevant to the Healthy Kids, Healthy Future agenda of supporting obesity prevention/health promotion in early care and education settings.

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