Earlier this week, a new foundation was launched to address the serious epidemic of childhood obesity. The Partnership for a Healthier America will bring together the public and private sectors, other organizations, business and thought leaders, the media, and states and local communities to make meaningful and measurable commitments to fighting childhood obesity. The nonpartisan organization was created by a number of leading foundations and nonprofits, including The California Endowment, Kaiser Permanente, Nemours, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

The effort aims to support the national goal to solve the childhood obesity challenge within a generation that has been set by First Lady Michelle Obama, who will also serve as Honorary Chair of the new organization. During the unveiling of her nationwide Let’s Move campaign at an event in Washington today, the First Lady commended the leadership of these organizations in providing the critical analysis and nonpartisan forum necessary to ensure the country meets its target.

To underscore the organization’s nonpartisan nature, a prominent Democrat and Republican will also be named Honorary Vice Chairs. The Partnership for a Healthier America was incorporated by Larry Kocot, who is also serving as the organization’s interim leader.

“Since 1980, the number of obese children in our nation has tripled, and obesity now rivals smoking as the largest cause of preventable death and disease. This new foundation creates an important public-private alliance that will increase national attention and commitments to the goal of ending the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation.” said Kocot. “We are very pleased that the First Lady has agreed to serve as Honorary Chair of the Partnership for a Healthier America, and we look forward to announcing honorary vice chairs and an independent, nonpartisan board of directors in the very near future.”

The partnership will develop a strong network of members across the business, government, academic, and nonprofit sectors who will commit to accelerating efforts to address childhood obesity and facilitating commitments towards the First Lady’s national target of solving childhood obesity within a generation. In addition to convening and encouraging commitments from the public, private and nonprofit sectors, the organization will objectively track and report performance of members to hold them accountable. It will not conduct programmatic activities, engage in grassroots organizing or lobbying, or compete with existing foundations.

Core activities of the Partnership for a Healthier America will include:

• Developing a strong membership network of leaders across sectors with commitment to scaling meaningful and measurable solutions;
• Convening members annually to affirm, align, and announce commitments;
• Promoting broad understanding among all sectors about the role healthy food, physical activity, and the environment play in reversing the childhood obesity epidemic;
• Facilitating and measuring the impact of members’ commitments against clear and transparent targets; and
• Connecting potential partners in the private and nonprofit sectors to each other and to the correct points of contact in government to ensure efficient leveraging of actions, and sharing of knowledge and lessons learned at the community, state, and national levels.

The First Lady’s Childhood Obesity Initiative
The First Lady’s nationwide initiative seeks to solve the challenge of childhood obesity, so that America’s youngest children reach adulthood at a healthy weight. Her plan offers four pillars:

1. Offering parents the tools and information they need to make healthy choices for their kids;
2. Getting healthier food into our nation’s schools;
3. Ensuring that all our families have access to healthy, affordable food in their communities; and
4. Increasing opportunities for kids to be physically active, both in and out of school.

The partnership will support these pillars through a campaign to unite and inspire families from every corner of the United States to take real and sustained actions to eat better, be more active, and make a commitment to embracing healthier lifestyles.
About the Partnership for a Healthier America
The Partnership for a Healthier America is an independent, nonpartisan organization that will mobilize broad-based support for efforts to solve the child obesity challenge. The partnership emerged out of a series of conversations between The California Endowment, Kaiser Permanente, Nemours, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, which is a partnership of the American Heart Association and the Clinton Foundation.

For more information about the Partnership for a Healthier America, please visit http://www.ahealthieramerica.org.