How do you eliminate fried foods from the diets of children in daycare? Cynthia Lara, director of the South Carolina Department of Social Services, suggested a conversation with your fire marshal.
Frying food, Lara explained, requires an expensive commercial hood to meet fire code. Smaller, mom-and-pop childcare facilities often fry without one. Once alerted to this, a fire marshal will be glad to eliminate a safety hazard – and the kids in daycare will be healthier as a result.
Want to follow South Carolina’s example? Follow Lara’s advice: “check with your fire marshal!”
“The funding is important. The policy is important. The strategies are important. But we also have to focus on our relationships, and having ongoing conversations with people across departments,” says Melissa Courts, the Healthy Child Care Ohio coordinator at the Ohio Department of Health.
In a break-out session this morning, the discussion focused on how to coordinate positive efforts from people in multiple state agencies. Courts described efforts Ohio has made to involve representatives from health and education departments in writing the standards and guidelines for early childcare. And, how those representatives have worked together to insure that childcare program directors receive the training they need to implement the standards successfully.
Participants also heard about similar initiatives underway in Arkansas, California and Delaware.
“People just need to be reminded,” said Courts. “Having local advocates at every level is important,” because, she said, that’s how effective plans addressing children’s educational and health development are created and implemented.
“Stand up when you applaud!”
Jim Sallis, director of Active Living Research, started today’s session with a group stretch and a call to walk the talk around physical activity. Sitting down for two hours at a time isn’t good for you, he argued. The solution? A standing ovation – or several.
Jim’s active applause is motivated by new data showing that sitting is a risk factor for obesity and chronic diseases like diabetes. “Even at the same amount of sitting,” Sallis said, “breaking it up by standing reduces the physical impact.”
Activity breaks – even brief ones like standing to applaud – can keep the body healthy and the mind awake.
And that, says Sallis, is a good thing. ”It’s just one way to build physical activity into our daily routines.”
Upon accepting a position as Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack heard a clear directive from his new boss, President Obama:
“I want our children to have more nutritious food.”
With the upcoming reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, Vilsack is pursuing numerous initiatives to address the President’s request. Today, at the Healthy Kids, Healthy Future conference, he announced several priorities:
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
- Additional funding: Ask Congress for an increase in WIC funding from $6.9 billion to $7.7 billion to meet expanded demand for the program, which reaches 49% of children.
- Electronic benefit redemption: $3 million in new grants to allow a number of states to implement systems that will allow WIC recipients to buy food with a card or similar device.
- Computer system upgrades: $5 million for states to make necessary upgrades that will ensure the integrity of the program.
National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program
- Expand access: Simplify the ways people qualify for participation.
- Reduce stigma: No child should be tagged as a recipient of subsidized food.
- Improve standards: Implement nutrition standards consistent with the food pyramid.
- Increase activity: Focus on increasing the physical activity that children receive in schools.
- Focus on vending: Make a concerted effort to focus on nutritional value of what’s available in vending machines.
All of this requires investment, Vilsack explained. But he also emphasized that there is a return on investments in WIC: school nutrition and obesity prevention impacts other parts of the budget favorably. For every dollar invested in WIC, three dollars are saved from the Medicaid program. As Vilsack noted to a knowing laugh from the crowd, not many programs in Washington see that kind of return on investment.
Vilsack concluded his talk with a positive outlook on environment for making the changes that President Obama asked for when invited Vilsack to join the USDA.
“The country is ready for this,” Vilsack said. “There’s a growing sense among folks that this is something we need to be taking far more seriously than we have been.”
Update: The official USDA press release is now available at usda.gov.
The current discussion around obesity and poor nutrition is focused on schools, health insurance, families and neighborhoods, but neglects a setting where more than three-quarters of children under six play and learn each day: early child care.
Join Nemours for live, online coverage of the Washington, D.C., conference on September 23-24 on the link between early childhood care and obesity later in life. Questions to be addressed include:
- Should early care be a substantial focus of youth health policy initiatives?
- What can we learn from current early health promotion programs as they affect childhood obesity?
Agenda highlights include:
- Keynote by USDA Secretary Vilsack highlighting healthy eating solutions for obesity prevention
- Discussion of model childcare wellness policies
- Reactor panel with key Administration and Congressional staff
This site will host live coverage throughout the September 23-24 conference, including timely reporting, participant interviews, guest blogs and multimedia to help you follow this critical public health discussion. Above, you’ll find the event agenda, speaker bios and powerpoints. Video of the discussions will be available shortly after the conference concludes.
Follow and contribute to the discussion:
- Live Blog: read timely news, interviews and more from our on-site reporters
- Comments: add your reactions in the live blog comments
- Twitter: follow the conference on Twitter at #hkhf09
- Presentations: view the speakers’ PowerPoint slides
- Live Updates: receive email and RSS updates from the blog
- Spread the Word: pass this site (healthykidshealthyfutures.com) along to your colleagues in the field
More details will emerge over the next week, so check back for the latest information about the conference. Please contact us if you have any questions about the event!
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September 24, 2009 11:25 am | 
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