Childhood Obesity: The Role of Health Policy - Association of ...

When tackling childhood obesity, health plans are:
• Educating providers about screening for obesity in children;
• Creating incentives for plan members to participate in weight-loss programs (e.g., through
discounted family memberships in health clubs, etc) 4 ;
• Creating and funding community-based weight management programs;
• Collecting data and evaluating the effectiveness of the services provided;
• Encouraging physical activity in schools; and
• Engaging federal and state policymakers to develop solutions and shape public policy approaches.
Themes of Success
As part of the review of these initiatives, several themes of successful programs emerged. Other publications
(National Governors’ Association, 2002; Rosenthal & Chang, 2004) have focused on the characteristics
of successful programs. Here we build on and adapt those to specifically address the health care sector.
Creating Successful Partnerships
Coalitions that bring clinical experts together with state and local health department leadership,
schools, health plans and others are most successful at articulating the urgency of the issue to policymakers
and putting forward a coordinated, coherent action proposal for them. In many states, representatives
of the AAP Chapter are serving on gubernatorial commissions and task forces.
Collaborations across state agencies and across programs within a single state agency (e.g., within state
health departments), help to coordinate approaches, and in some cases pool resources, to support comprehensive
approaches. In some instances, health plans (e.g., Kaiser Permanente Northern California)
are going beyond implementing a range of interventions for their members (e.g. Kaiser Permanente
Northern California (KPNC)), to mounting comprehensive approaches with both clinical and communi-
5
The Iowa Chapter president is part of the Iowa City School District Wellness Committee, charged with
developing and implementing policy decisions with respect to school lunches and ala carte, concession and
vending machine selections.
The New Mexico Chapter is involved in the Envision project that aims to address childhood overweight with
a multi-pronged approach by providing training for healthcare providers in prevention and medical management
of pediatric overweight, fostering collaboration in communities, providing Facilitating Change
(Motivational Interviewing) training to all project participants, as well as all pediatric residents, and providing
educational materials for providers and families on pediatric overweight. Envision is also developing a
tele-health component to provide specialty consultation for rural primary healthcare providers.
The Ohio Chapter co-sponsored a two-day obesity conference with the local chapter of the American Heart
Association and served as a fiscal agent for this conference. The chapter also disseminated information on
healthy lifestyles through an Open Forum topic, and developed an Ounce of Prevention toolkit through the
Chapter’s Healthy Lifestyles Committee and Healthy Kids coalition, which is available on the chapter website.
A West Virginia Chapter member received a Chapter Mini-grant for his "Let's Get Moving" quality project.
His team conducted 20 Health Fairs in Cabell County. 5th graders with BMI > 85% were randomized into two
groups. Both groups received standard information every two weeks on nutrition and exercise. One group
received an "exercise coach" (a medical student, resident or YMCA trainer).
4 It is not clear if this type of incentive/benefit would benefit all populations equally if basic membership is cost-prohibitive.