PHA Statement on Obesity Rates in Young Children

Washington, DC (February 26, 2014)—Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) CEO Lawrence A. Soler released the following statement regarding the drop in childhood obesity rates reported by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) today:

“Today’s findings indicating that obesity rates have fallen significantly among 2-to-5-year-olds in the United States offers real evidence that we can achieve our goal of ending the childhood obesity epidemic in a generation.

“Since our founding, PHA has worked diligently with the private sector and our honorary chair First Lady Michelle Obama to create meaningful commitments that make healthier choices easier for busy parents and families to make. Part of this work involves childcare centers across the country, which have made commitments to create healthier environments for nearly 700,000 children in their care.

“This drop in obesity rates is due not only to the work of PHA’s partners, but also to years of work by communities, schools, government, foundations, advocates, non-profit organizations, parents, families and industry who are committed to making the healthy choice the easy choice. While there is still work to do, today’s news is significant and exciting for everyone who is working to ensure our kids live full and healthy lives.”

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.