Comprehensive Health Initiative Will Expand to 70 Cities and Regions by
2010

PRINCETON, N.J., Dec. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As the first
investment of a new $44 million initiative, the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation (RWJF) has awarded grants of up to $400,000 to nine communities
across the country that will serve as leading sites for its most ambitious
effort yet to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic.

Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities will support local action to increase
opportunities for physical activity and access to healthy, affordable foods
for children and families. The goal is to catalyze policy and environmental
changes that can make a lasting difference and be replicated across the
country.

The program is a major part of RWJF's five-year, $500 million
commitment to reverse the epidemic in the United States by 2015. The
Foundation is also focused on building the evidence about what works to
prevent childhood obesity and on supporting advocacy to educate
policy-makers and leaders at all levels about the best solutions.

"Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities will be a cornerstone of our work
into the next decade," said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., RWJF
president and CEO. "This is one of the largest community-action programs
ever supported by the Foundation and one that holds great potential for
changing many people's lives."

The leading sites are urban and rural, large and small. They include
Chicago; Columbia, Mo.; Louisville, Ky.; Seattle; Somerville, Mass.;
Washington; and Baldwin Park, Central Valley and Oakland in California.
Through impressive partnerships of neighborhood associations and public
agencies, all are pursuing an array of strategies to reshape their
communities and promote active living and healthy eating - from farmers
markets in public schools to community gardens and produce-stocked corner
stores; from new bicycle lanes and wider sidewalks to a pedestrian-only
boulevard on weekends.

The program will grow to approximately 70 communities when another
round of funding is awarded late next year. Many are expected to be from a
swath of southern states where childhood obesity rates are particularly
high. The leading sites will then work with the new communities to share
the lessons they've learned and the most effective approaches.

"The leading sites announced today will provide the rest of the nation
with clear direction on how we must change the environment around us to
support our children's health," said Sarah Strunk, M.H.A., director of
Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities. "The transformation of these communities
will also demonstrate the power of community partnerships working toward a
common vision."

The nine communities recognized today will receive four-year grants to
broaden or accelerate changes already under way. In each, special emphasis
is being placed on reaching children who are at greatest risk of obesity
because of their income, race or ethnicity.

Seattle's partners, for example, will focus on engaging young immigrant
families in four public housing developments across King County. Part of
Louisville's work will concentrate on a corner store strategy in a dozen
primarily African-American neighborhoods. The city of Washington plans to
establish a "saturation index" of unhealthy food vendors to help tackle
obesity and overweight in two lower-income wards.

But even as these leading sites are moving forward, so, too, is the
next phase of Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities. RWJF today released a call
for proposals for the second round of funding under the program. Next
December, it will award four-year grants of up to $360,000 to about 60
communities.

The deadline for brief proposals is Feb. 3. Partnerships from across
the United States and its territories are eligible to apply. Preference
will be given to applicants from communities in 15 states where the
prevalence of or risk for childhood obesity is particularly high: Alabama,
Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New
Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West
Virginia.

Visit http://www.healthykidshealthycommunities.org to download the call for
proposals and obtain additional information, including profiles of each
leading community and its plans for change.

Complete details also are available at http://www.rwjf.org/childhoodobesity.

About Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities

Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities, a national program of the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), advances community-based solutions that
will help reverse the childhood obesity epidemic. It focuses on changing
policies and environments to support active living and healthy eating among
children and families. The program places special emphasis on reaching
children who are at highest risk for obesity on the basis of income,
race/ethnicity and geographic location. It will support RWJF's efforts to
reverse the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States by 2015.

The Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities national program office is housed
at Active Living by Design, part of the North Carolina Institute for Public
Health at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health in Chapel Hill.
Established in 2001 as a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, Active Living by Design now serves funders and partnerships
across the country that are fostering community-led change to build a
culture of active living and healthy eating.

About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and
health care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy
devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all
Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and
individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and
timely change.

For more than 35 years the Foundation has brought experience,
commitment and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect
the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping
Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the Foundation
expects to make a difference in your lifetime. For more information, visit
http://www.rwjf.org.

SOURCE Robert Wood Johnson Foundation