Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities
Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) that focuses on systems, policies and environmental strategies to support healthy eating and active living, especially among children who are at highest risk for obesity. Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities will work with up to 50 local community partnerships across the country to help them increase opportunities for physical activity and improve access to affordable, healthy foods for children and families. This initiative will advance RWJF's efforts to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015. Active Living By Design directs the national program office and provides technical assistance to the grantees.
The overall objectives of the Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities program are to:
1) provide funding, tools and assistance to help up to 50 communities sustain systems, policies and environmental changes that support healthy eating and active living, especially among children who are at highest risk for obesity
2) collaborate with other RWJF-funded initiatives to help drive wide-scale change
3) support experienced local leaders who will serve as ambassadors and mentors for communities that are working to prevent childhood obesity
4) apply research findings and evaluation results to help communities implement the most effective strategies for increasing physical activity and improving nutrition for kids
5) inform the policy debate on childhood obesity by sharing insight about initiatives with the greatest potential for wide-scale change that will help to reverse the epidemic
