The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and the AAFP Foundation announce that they have been awarded a $150,000 grant from MetLife Foundation, designed to counter the national epidemic of childhood obesity by empowering family physicians with new ways to promote physical activity, nutrition and emotional well-being. The partnership will produce educational materials for children, including books and publications.
The materials are designed to encourage patients to talk with family physicians about fitness and to work together to develop a plan to enable sustained healthy life style choices among family members. The endeavor will be administered by Americans In Motion (AIM), an AAFP initiative designed to improve the health of all Americans through multifaceted fitness programs. This year's grant builds upon an initiative that was successfully launched in 2008 by MetLife Foundation and the AAFP, which has to date included the production of a DVD and children's book discussing fitness for the family, with a special emphasis on ways to maintain fitness for children.
"We are pleased to continue this important partnership with MetLife Foundation," said Lori Heim, M.D., president of the AAFP. "Children learn by example, and to effectively combat childhood obesity, candid discussions must take place between doctors, young patients and their parents. This initiative will plant the seed for such discussions."
The materials will be distributed in late summer 2010 to approximately 37,000 family physicians, as well all 455 family medicine residency training programs in the United States, and will be available in Spanish. They are designed to be used in the waiting rooms of family physicians' practices, creating opportunities for parents and children to learn and talk about issues related to fitness with their physician.
Rather than emphasizing diets and weight loss, the initiative will present fitness as a balance of physical activity, nutrition and emotional well-being. Only sustained, healthy lifestyle choices will be successful in countering childhood obesity.
Today's children may have a shorter life expectancy than their parents because of obesity-related illnesses. Almost 60 percent of Americans do not get sufficient daily exercise and almost 65 percent are overweight or obese. But family physicians are in a strong position to positively influence their patients' fitness habits and, as they conduct 208 million patient visits each year and care for the entire family, they can help fight childhood obesity on a national scale.
"Family physicians are an important link to halting the growing threat of childhood obesity, by providing families with much-needed health information," said Dennis White, president and CEO of MetLife Foundation. "MetLife Foundation is pleased to support this initiative, which is dedicated to helping families make smart decisions that can result in longer, healthier lives."
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