On October 6-7, the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland, will be the site of the We Can! Rally, a unique forum to network with and learn from community site leaders, national partners, curricula content experts, and NIH leaders on ways communities can work together to improve childhood physical activity and nutrition. Interactive sessions on We Can! parent and youth curricula, implementing community events, forming partnerships, recruiting participants, and engaging the media will provide participants with valuable strategies to make We Can! programming more effective and engaging.

Action for Healthy Kids, the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Education, and Health and Human Services, and other organizations are promoting Game On! The Ultimate Wellness Challenge. Game On! is a nationwide effort to inform, motivate, and mobilize support for the promotion of good nutrition and physical activity policies that support learning.  Game On! is an all-inclusive, fun and free event for 5 th-8 th grade students, parents, teachers, administrators, and others. Communities across the country are encouraged to host their own Game On! events. The public is welcome to join in the national celebration in Washington, D.C. on October 5, 2006.  For more information, click here.

Within the next two weeks, the Administration on Aging will be announcing a new grant opportunity directed at states that will support the implementation of evidence-based disease and disability prevention programs for the elderly at the community level.  The program will involve partnerships between the aging and public health networks at the state and community level.  Only state aging agencies or state health departments will be eligible to apply for these grants.  The program builds on AoA’s 2003 evidence-based prevention program, and will encourage applicants to secure resources from other funders. Awards will be in the $300,000 range.  AoA will post the announcement on Grants.Gov and on AoA.Gov.

The CDC's Healthier Worksite Initiative (HWI) launched its website. This comprehensive resource is designed as a "one-stop shop" for planners of workforce health promotion programs. Geared towards federal and state wellness planners, the website features timesaving planning information, policy examples, and step-by-step toolkits.

Findings from a study from the National Institutes of Health, Institute of Child Health and Human Development “indicate that children with BMIs >85th percentile, as well as with BMIs in the high reference range are more likely than children whose BMI is <50th percentile to continue to gain weight and reach overweight status by adolescence. Pediatricians can be confident in counseling parents to begin to address the at-risk child's eating and activity patterns rather than delaying in hopes that overweight and the patterns that support it will resolve themselves in due course. Identifying children at risk for adolescent obesity provides physicians with an opportunity for earlier intervention with the goal of limiting the progression of abnormal weight gain that results in the development of obesity-related morbidity.”

Philip R. Nader, Marion O'Brien, Renate Houts, Robert Bradley, Jay Belsky, Robert Crosnoe, Sarah Friedman, Zuguo Mei, Elizabeth J. Susman for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network. Identifying Risk for Obesity in Early Childhood. Pediatrics 2006; 118: e594-e601.

CDC 5 A Day Team Announces Arrival of Updated 5 A Day Website
The CDC 5 A Day team is thrilled to announce the arrival of the updated 5 A Day website (formally the NCI 5 A Day website) located at www.5aday.gov! This website contains valuable information for the consumer and health professional, as well as a section for state fruit and vegetable coordinators.

The website features a tool in which consumers can determine how many fruits and vegetables they need daily based on their age, sex and activity level. Consumers can then find examples of what a cup and a half cup of fruits and vegetables looks like, as well as helpful tips for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. The recipe database contains over 600 healthy recipes which each contain at least one 1/2 cup serving of fruit or vegetables.

Health Professionals can find research, resources and tools, and information about the 5 A Day program. This section also contains information just for coordinators including the coordinator calendar, upcoming events, resources, and links to the WebBoard.

A new HRSA publication, "Overweight and Physical Activity Among Children: A Portrait of States and the Nation, 2005," reports on the prevalence of overweight and levels of physical activity among children and their families at the national and state levels using data from the 2005 National Survey of Children's Health. The report includes information for each state, easy-to-follow bar graphs as well as breakdown analyses by ethnic and racial group.

To view or download the report, click here.

And elsewhere…

USDA
Eat Smart. Play Hard resource updates:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Eat Smart. Play Hard.(TM) campaign shows that kids can learn about eating healthy and being physically active in a fun way with the introduction of a kids’ web page!

Power Panther, the campaign’s spokescharacter, has opened up his community for kids to explore. Kids can go to the places that Power Panther visits to learn about eating healthy and being physically active such as the Town Library, Theater, Fitness Center, Power Tunes store, Post Office, Eat Smart Grill, Fun Times Arcade, and Travel center. Behind the doors of these places, kids discover how math, geography, music, reading, and science play a part in living a healthy lifestyle. Find songs, activity sheets comics, clipart, worksheets, games, posters, e-cards, recipes, and more at the Web site.

The Healthy Lifestyle webpage is designed to help parents and caregivers eat better, be more physically active and remind them they are role models for their kids.

The webpage contains:

• Information on getting started,
• Advice on making smart choices,
• Ideas on how to prepare quick, tasty and healthy meals and
• Tips on how to increase physical activity throughout the day.

Other resources include a Calorie Burner Chart, the My Pyramid Tracker and the ESPH Tracking Card.

The Eat Smart. Play Hard.™ Healthy Lifestyle is available by clicking here.

The "Land Use and Health Toolbox: Resources on Health and the Built Environment" is now available online. This resource from the National Association of City and County Health Officials includes fact sheets, guides, PowerPoint presentations, web casts, policy reports and other information to assist health practitioners, elected officials, and community planners make the connection between public health, community design and the built environment.

The Prevention Institute, with funding from The California Endowment, has made available online the Environmental Nutrition and Activity (ENACT) Local Policy Database. The searchable database is designed to provide community advocates, health professionals, policymakers and those working in related fields with concrete examples of local-level policies that have been adopted and/or implemented to improve nutrition and physical activity environments. People who have worked on a local policy to make healthier eating easier, developed a local plan to improve walkability, or established a policy to make sure students get active are invited to submit examples of policies. To view the database or to submit a local policy, follow the link above.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation requested in 2005 that the Institute on Medicine convene an expert committee to examine the nation’s progress in addressing obesity in children and youth. Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity: How Do We Measure Up? presents the committee’s conclusions and recommendations. It emphasizes a call to action for key stakeholders and sectors to lead and commit to childhood obesity prevention, evaluate all policies and programs, monitor their progress, and widely disseminate promising practices.