Strategies and Solutions for My Community
Obesity is common, serious, and costly. Help take action in your community to combat the obesity epidemic by learning what early childhood education programs, hospitals, neighborhoods, schools, and worksites can do to help make the healthy choice the easy choice.
Early childhood education programs can:
- Help our youngest children eat healthier and move more by participating in the Let's Move Child Care Checklist Quiz.
Sign up for Let's Move! Child Care and take the Checklist Quiz. - Learn which states have policies about water, sugar drinks and screen time in the CDC's Children's Food Environmzent State Indicator Report, 2011.
See Children's Food Environment State Indicator Report, 2011 [PDF - 762 Kb].
Hospitals can:
- Use CDC's Breastfeeding Report Card to better protect, promote and support breastfeeding mothers.
- Participate in the Maternity Practices in Infant Nutrition and Care (mPINC) survey and use their results to improve maternity care practices.
- Partner with Baby-Friendly™ hospitals to learn how to improve maternity care and achieve the Baby-Friendly designation.
- Learn what other hospitals are doing to promote maternity care practices related to breastfeeding.
See CDC's DNPAO State Program Highlights: Maternity Care Practices [PDF - 134 Kb] - Improve their environments to better support the health of their employees and embody the mission of their organization.
Neighborhoods can:
- Assess their retail food environment to better understand the current landscape and differences in accessibility to healthier foods.
- Learn which states have policies that create access to places for physical activity in the CDC State Indicator Report on Physical Activity, 2010.
See State Indicator Report on Physical Activity, 2010 [PDF - 1.48 Mb] - Learn more about "complete streets" and how Michigan neighbors are working with coalitions and public health programs to complete their street.
See Taking It to the (Complete) Streets: Michigan's Road to Fight Obesity [PDF - 654 Kb]
Schools can:
- Apply for a salad bar today to help students eat more fruits and vegetables.
- Ensure that the available food and beverage options are healthy and help youth eat food that meets dietary recommendations for fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and nonfat or low-fat dairy products.
- Limit foods and drinks with added sugar, fat and salt that can be purchased outside the school lunch program.
See Recommended Nutrition Standards for Foods Outside of School Meal Programs [PDF - 1.47 Mb] - Use CDC's School Health Index (SHI), a self-assessment and planning tool, to improve their health and safety policies and programs.
- Create a Local School Wellness Policy to promote student health and reduce childhood obesity.
- Increase the amount of time that students are being moderately to vigorously physically active during physical education classes.
See Strategies to Improve the Quality of Physical Education [PDF - 598 Kb]
Worksites can:
- Find information, resources, and step-by-step toolkits to help improve the health of your employees.
- Use the Worksite Walkability Audit Tool to learn how safe or attractive the walking routes are in your workplace.
See Worksite Walkability- Make healthier food available in cafeterias, vending, snack bars and other concessions.
- Design effective worksite obesity prevention and control programs.
- Support breastfeeding in the workplace.
See Breastfeeding Promotion & Support to find out how Health Care and Employment can support breastfeeding - Make healthier food available in cafeterias, vending, snack bars and other concessions.
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Contact Us:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Rd
Atlanta, GA 30333 - 800-CDC-INFO
(800-232-4636)
TTY: (888) 232-6348
24 Hours/Every Day - cdcinfo@cdc.gov
- Page last reviewed: April 27, 2012
- Page last updated: April 27, 2012
- Content source: Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1600 Clifton Rd. Atlanta, GA 30333, USA
800-CDC-INFO (800-232-4636) TTY: (888) 232-6348 - Contact CDC–INFO
800-CDC-INFO (800-232-4636) TTY: (888) 232-6348 - Contact CDC–INFO