The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
May 19, 2008
As part of a new, five-day series on childhood obesity, the Washington Post on Monday examined efforts to address the childhood obesity epidemic. Experts say that, as U.S. children have grown heavier across the last two decades, the country's response has suffered from a lack of leadership, financing and direction. Jeffrey Koplan, former director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, asserts that the country has yet to address childhood obesity as if it were "a national health priority."
Critics contend that lawmakers are failing to aggressively encourage necessary food industry and policy changes. Federal officials, however, say that they have "resolutely and steadily" worked to battle obesity across the past eight years, in part through public health campaigns, new dietary guidelines and yet-to-be released physical activity guidelines. Foundations, local and state governments, and the private sector have supplemented the efforts by lending financial support and enacting policies designed to strengthen school nutrition and P.E. requirements.