This September marks the second annual Childhood Obesity Awareness Month.  Created by President Barak Obama in 2011, the purpose of the designation is to bring understanding to the country’s fast-growing health crisis.  Beyond showcasing the facts that make childhood overweight and obesity so serious, this month gives parents, guardians, teachers, and community members the opportunity to take action to get kids moving more and eating better.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years.  In Rochester, one in three children are considered overweight or obese, which can lead to a variety of health issues, including an increase in heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and even cancer later in life.  As a community we must recognize that change needs to occur, otherwise this generation of children will have a shorter lifespan than their parents.

Since 2008 the Healthi Kids Initiative has actively engaged City residents and parents to advance a policy and practice change agenda that calls for improved school food, safer, more accessible play areas, and healthy foods in child care centers.  Healthi Kids led by the Finger Lakes Health Systems Agency (FLHSA) are collaborating to enlist more residents and parents, families and community groups, to help champion this important prevention effort.

September is the perfect time to take action, and Healthi Kids is here to help.  Throughout the month we will be offering different opportunities for you to act in simple ways, on a variety of topics and areas that interest you.  Healthi Kids works on everything from city land use policies, health and physical activity in afterschool settings, promotion of breastfeeding, creating safe places for children to play, recess in schools, and policies that support healthy corner stores.  Any way you decide to act will show support for Rochester’s children, and will help further Healthi Kids efforts to make childhood obesity a thing of the past.