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Nine communities across the United States have been awarded up to $400,000 each by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to lead an ambitious effort to reverse the nation’s childhood obesity epidemic.

Nine communities across the United States have been awarded up to $400,000 each by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to lead an ambitious effort to reverse the nation’s childhood obesity epidemic.

The program, part of a $44 million initiative, is managed by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Active Living By Design program. Active Living By Design was established in 2001 as a national program of the foundation and is part of the North Carolina Institute for Public Health at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.

The program, “Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities,” will support comprehensive local approaches that increase opportunities for physical activity and access to healthy, affordable foods for children and families. It builds upon Active Living By Design’s past successes working with community-based initiatives both nationally and in nearly 40 North Carolina communities. “Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities” is also a major part of the foundation’s five-year, $500 million commitment to reverse the obesity epidemic in the United States by 2015.

The chosen sites will receive four-year grants. They are urban and rural, large and small: Chicago; Columbia, Mo.; Louisville, Ky.; Seattle; Somerville, Mass.; Washington, D.C.; and Baldwin Park, Central Valley and Oakland in California.

Through partnerships of neighborhood associations, non-profit organizations and public agencies, all sites are pursuing an array of strategies – from farmers markets in public schoolyards, to community gardens, new bicycle lanes, wider sidewalks, healthier corner stores and a pedestrian-only boulevard on weekends.

The foundation has also released a call for proposals for the second round of funding under the program. Next December, it will award four-year grants of up to $360,000 to about 60 communities. Preference will be given to applicants from communities in 15 states where the prevalence of or risk for childhood obesity is particularly high: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.

For more information, visit http://www.healthykidshealthycommunities.org or http://rwjf.org/childhoodobesity.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation news release: http://www.rwjf.org/childhoodobesity/product.jsp?id=36348

UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, (919) 966-7467, ramona_dubose@unc.edu
News Services contact: Patric Lane, (919) 962-8596, patric_lane@unc.edu

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