Task Force on Childhood Obesity

The Childhood Obesity Task Force is a United States Government task force charged with reducing childhood obesity in the United States. It was founded on February 9, 2010 by the Obama Administration through a Presidential Memorandum, announcing the establishment of a Task Force on Childhood Obesity. The Task Force aims to develop a plan to reduce childhood obesity. In the announcement, President Barack Obama highlighted the statistics on childhood obesity in the United States and outlined the steps that this new task force would be taking to end childhood obesity. Section 1 of the Memorandum states:

"There is established a Task Force on Childhood Obesity (Task Force) to develop an interagency action plan to solve the problem of obesity among our Nation's children within a generation. The Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy shall serve as Chair of the Task Force."

The task force is designed to support the Administration's "Let's Move" initiative, first announced by Michelle Obama in February 2010. The Let's Move initiative is similar to the task force, except it focuses on involving more partners in the cause to reduce childhood obesity than just the United States Government.

The goals of the Childhood Obesity Task Force were outlined by First Lady Michelle Obama in the Task Force Action Plan. The plan includes five goals which are supported by 70 specific recommendations.

This first goal includes recommendation for getting good prenatal care for mothers, support for breastfeeding, adherence to limits on screen time, and childcare with nutritious food and opportunities for children to be physically active. Goals were set in order to increase the amount of fruits that children eat to 75% of the recommended level by the year 2015, with an 85% increase by 2020, then 100% in the year 2030. Other plans included using the same scale to increase vegetable consumption in children and to decrease amounts of added sugar to many products.

The second goal of the Task Force is to educate parents and caregivers with easier to read nutritional labels and food menus which adhere to the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Improved health care services and testing to include Body Mass Index measurement for children is also part of this goal. This goal also aims to reduce the marketing of unhealthy food to children. Michelle Obama said that by the year 2012, all primary care physicians should be measuring BMI index for children.

The fight for this particular goal has been referenced in Jamie Oliver’s “Food Revolution” television series. This goal aims for federally supported schools to begin serving healthy options to children, and to upgrade the nutritional quality of the food sold in schools. Nutrition education is also part of this goal. The Task Force recommends updating the nutritional standards in schools and "improving the nutritional quality of USDA commodities given to schools." It also recommends asking food companies to come up with new products and reformulate existing ones in food so that they meet nutritional standards based on Dietary Guidelines and are appealing to children.

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