PHA joins Team USA to Celebrate Olympic Day

Team USA Provides Thousands of Free and Low Cost Activities This Weekend and Throughout the Year for Kids Who Want to Play Like Olympians and Paralympians

WASHINGTON, DC (June 21, 2012)—With just over a month left until the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games in London, new polling released today shows that more than half of parents say that their children will be active alongside US Olympians and Paralympians this summer. The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) has joined with Team USA to make that possible in communities across the country. With two-thirds of parents expressing interest in signing their kids up for free or low cost community summer programs, this collaborative effort will provide kids everywhere opportunities to get moving this summer.

“The Olympic and Paralympic Games inspire children from all over the world to get active and participate in sport,” said five-time Olympian and Team USA’s chef de mission for the 2012 Olympic Games Teresa Edwards.

“Olympic Day, and the U.S. Olympic Committee’s collaboration with Mrs. Obama, Let’s Move! and PHA, is a fantastic opportunity to highlight the importance of healthy lifestyles and the positive impact that sport has on society.”

PHA, which works with the private sector and PHA honorary chair First Lady Michelle Obama to end the childhood obesity crisis, today released new findings that suggest the significant potential of this summer’s Olympic and Paralympic Games to get kids moving. This study, conducted by independent research company Social Science Research Solutions, surveyed a nationally representative sample of 500 parents with children under age 16 living in the household via telephone interviews, which occurred from May 31 to June 17, 2012.

More than eight in 10 parents indicated that that they plan on using the Olympics and Paralympics to get their children more excited about participating in sports or another form of physical activity. When asked if they would be interested in signing their child up for new low cost or free physical activity or sports programs this summer if available, nearly two-thirds (66%) of those surveyed responded ‘yes.’ Cost played a factor as well, with three-fourths of families making less than $50,000 a year saying they would be interested in signing their kids up for a new physical activity program this summer if a new free or low-cost option were available in their community.

“We know that kids want to be active, and we know that parents are looking for ways to get them more active,” said PHA’s Chief Marketing Officer Drew Nannis. “This poll confirms the importance of getting information about free and low-cost programs to parents. We need to do everything we can to make the healthy choice the easy choice for busy parents and families, and our relationship with Team USA is a great way to do just that.”

In order to fulfill its commitment to provide 1.7 millions kids with beginner athletic programming throughout 2012, Team USA is working with PHA as well as First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! effort to bring free or low-cost clinics, races, school visits, after school programs and other physical activity opportunities to communities throughout the nation. Interested families can go to www.ahealthieramerica.org/olympics and type in their zip code to find local programs and facilities.

The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) is devoted to working with the private sector to ensure the health of our nation’s youth by solving the childhood obesity crisis. In 2010, PHA was created in conjunction with – but independent from – First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move!effort. PHA is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that is led by some of the nation’s most respected health and childhood obesity experts. PHA brings together public, private and nonprofit leaders to broker meaningful commitments and develop strategies to end childhood obesity. Most important, PHA ensures that commitments made are commitments kept by working with unbiased, third parties to monitor and publicly report on the progress our partners are making. For more information about PHA, please visit www.aHealthierAmerica.org and follow PHA on Twitter @PHAnews.

Social Science Research Solutions/SSRS conducted interviews from May 31 to June 17, 2012 with a nationally representative sample of 500 parents with children under age 16 living in the household as part of EXCEL, SSRS’s weekly national telephone survey. Each week, SSRS conducts a minimum of 1,000 interviews, of which 300 interviews are completed with respondents on their cell phones and at least 30 are conducted in Spanish, assuring unprecedented representation on an omnibus platform. Completes are representative of the United States population of adults 18 and older. 30-30-30