Future Directions: A Community-Based Approach

Abstract

Shaping America's Youth (SAY) was founded on the premise that families and their communities are the most critical (and most often missing) components of efforts at any level to prevent and reduce excess weight in childhood. This premise is supported by the data ascertained through the SAY town-meeting process and summarized in this supplemental issue of Pediatrics .1 In addition, these data provide key elements for the development and implementation of effective interventions that address this national health crisis. The relative concordance of our findings with those actions identified in the recent “White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity report to the President”2 offers encouraging evidence that a path forward does exist. In our 2004 “Summary Report 2004: National Survey and Registry of Programs Addressing Childhood Physical Inactivity and Excess Weight”3 we documented, by a variety of criteria, that most local programmatic efforts directed at excess weight in children are lacking the design, structure, and/or support required to effect significant improvements in child health. Specific weaknesses identified in the SAY survey include the following. Address correspondence to David A. McCarron, MD, FACP, McCarron Group LLC, 120 NW Ninth Ave, Suite 206, Portland, OR 97209. E-mail: dmccarron{at}mccarrongroup.com