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Obesity

           

Obesity News

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Associations and Organizations

    • + Professional and Research
      • Boston Nutrition Obesity Research Center (BNORC) The Boston Obesity Research Center (ORC) provides resources and support for studies in the area of obesity and nutrition. The site provides access to research, events, and information about the Institute's activities around obesity and nutrition.
      • Center for Health and Health Care in Schools (CHHCS) A nonpartisan policy, resource and technical assistance center with a history of developing school-connected strategies for better health and education outcomes for children. CHHCS partners with foundations, government health and education agencies, school districts, and providers across the country to support their school-connected initiatives.
      • Healthy Eating Research A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program that supports research on environmental and policy strategies with potential to promote healthy eating among children, especially those most at risk for obesity.
      • NACCHO Obesity Prevention/Physical Activity/Nutrition NACCHO, in cooperation with the CDC, seeks to address issues related to the obesity endemic in the United States and develop interventions through evidence-based, cost-effective strategies which can have a significant impact on our nation's health.
      • National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) The mission of the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) is to accelerate progress in reducing childhood obesity.
      • Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity The Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity is one of 33 Prevention Research Centers funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Their mission is to work with community partners to design, implement, and evaluate programs that improve nutrition and physical activity, reduce overweight, and reduce chronic disease risk among children and youth.
      • Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity The Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity is a non-profit research and public policy organization devoted to improving the world's diet, preventing obesity, and reducing weight stigma.
      • Texas Obesity Research Center The Texas Obesity Research Center fosters local community collaborations to develop state-of-the-art obesity prevention and control methodologies through cross sectional and longitudinal research investigating psychosocial, environmental and biologic determinants of obesity and its consequences.
      • The Obesity Society The Obesity Society is a leading scientific society dedicated to the study of obesity, committed to encouraging research on the causes and treatment of obesity, and to keeping the medical community and public informed of new advances.
      • University of Minnesota Obesity Prevention Center The University of Minnesota Obesity Prevention Center provides leadership and coordination at the local, national, and international level for multidisciplinary research, policy, and education that focuses on understanding and responding to the pernicious epidemic of excessive weight gain and obesity.
    • + Federal
      • NIH Obesity Research NIH is a key contributor to solving the obesity problem through scientific research on obesity prevention and treatment.
    • + International
      • European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO) The European Association for the Study of Obesity aims to promote research on obesity, facilitate contact between individuals and organizations, and promote action that tackles the epidemic of obesity.
      • WHO Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity Commission has been tasked with providing a report specifying which approaches and combinations of interventions are likely to be most effective in tackling childhood and adolescent obesity in different contexts around the world.
      • World Obesity Federation IASO is an umbrella organization for obesity associations from over 50 countries. It works to improve global health by promoting the understanding of obesity and weight-related diseases through scientific research, dialogue, and the development of effective policies for obesity prevention and management.
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Obesity Information and Resources

ASTHO Obesity and Wellness Resources   - Support and resources to states for the development of policies that support healthy eating and active living. (Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO))

CDC Overweight & Obesity Topics   - Provides an overview of obesity in America and links to information resources. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HHS)

Endocrine Society: Obesity Overview   - Online clearinghouse for the general public and reporters seeking information on the key scientific trends and advancements related to obesity. (Endocrine Society)

Evaluating Weight Control Programs   - Find a variety of articles, brochures, and publications to help consumers and professionals alike find their way through the maze of weight and diet claims. (National Agricultural Library, USDA)

FNIC Weight and Obesity   - The Food Nutrition Information Center provides a wealth of knowledge on the topic of obesity, including general information and resources, treatment and prevention timelines, evaluating weight control programs, practical healthy weight control, adolescent and childhood obesity and non-diet approaches, and more. (Food and Nutrition Information Center, National Agricultural Library)

Healthfinder: Obesity   - Government-sponsored information resources on obesity. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS))

Healthy Weight   - Site provides consumers information on healthy eating, weight loss, preventing weight gain, health effects of extra weight, physical activity, tips for parents, meal planning, and success stories. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HHS)

Healthy Weight USDA   - Find strategies for successful weight loss, what you should know about popular diets, and more. (U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA))

MedlinePlus - Obesity   - Authoritative information and selected links to resources related to obesity. (National Library of Medicine (NLM), NIH)

NIFA Obesity Topic Page   - Information on obesity and healthy weight including news, funding opportunities, research results, partnerships, and upcoming events. (National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), USDA)

Nutrition and Obesity Genetics and Genomics   - Resources about genetic linkages to nutrition and obesity, including research and funding opportunities. (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), NIH)

Obesity Treatment and Prevention Program   - The Obesity Treatment and Prevention Program supports research on the prevention and treatment of overweight and obesity across the lifespan. Research focuses on critical periods for excess weight gain or high-risk populations. (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), NIH)

WHO Obesity Page   - Webpage includes information, multimedia, WHO programs, publications, statistics, and technical information on obesity at the global-level. (World Health Organization (WHO))

Weight-Control Information Network (WIN)   - Provides the general public, health professionals, the media, and Congress with up-to-date, science-based information on weight control, obesity, physical activity, and related nutritional issues. (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), NIH)

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Reports, Publications and Guidelines

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Programs and Campaigns

Eat Healthy ─ Be Active Community Workshops   - Six one-hour workshops that include lesson plans, learning objectives, talking points, hands-on activities, and handouts. The workshops are designed for community educators, health promoters, dietitians/nutritionists, cooperative extension agents, and others to teach to adults in a wide variety of community settings. (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP), HHS)

Innovations in Childhood Obesity   - The Innovations in Childhood Obesity initiative fosters collaboration between Medicaid and public health organizations in five states - Arizona, Maryland, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas - with efforts focused on the development, testing, and dissemination of innovative approaches to reducing obesity prevalence among low-income children. (Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS))

Let's Move!   - *Archived site, content may be outdated.* Comprehensive initiative, launched by the First Lady, dedicated to solving the problem of obesity within a generation, so that children born today will grow up healthier and able to pursue their dreams.

We Can! Ways to Enhance Children's Activity & Nutrition   - National education program designed to give parents, caregivers, and entire communities a way to help children 8 to 13 years old stay at a healthy weight. The program provides tools, fun activities, and more to help encourage healthy eating, increased physical activity, and reduced screen time. (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIH)

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Childhood Obesity Information

CDC Childhood Obesity Facts   - Provides information on childhood obesity including statistics, health effects, and prevention strategies. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HHS)

CHOICES Project   - The Childhood Obesity Intervention Cost-Effectiveness Study (CHOICES) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is working to help reverse the US obesity epidemic by identifying the most cost-effective childhood obesity interventions. (Harvard University, T.H. Chan School of Public Health)

COMPACT   - A five-year international collaboration to apply the principles of systems science to community-based childhood obesity interventions. Systems science can help researchers identify the factors that lead to the effective implementation of childhood obesity interventions. (Brookings Institution)

DigitalCATCH   - Digital CATCH is the platform to access program resources for CATCH® , the school health program with the most scientific evidence of effectiveness. Site provides free access to physical activity and nutrition curricula for pre-K through middle school students. (CATCH: Coordinated Approach to Child Health)

Healthy Kids, Healthy Future   - Healthy Kids, Healthy Future is a nationwide call-to-action that empowers child care and early education providers to make positive health changes in children that could last a lifetime. (Nemours Foundation)

Innovations in Childhood Obesity Resource Center   - This resource center provides practical tools and strategies to spur Medicaid-public health collaboration to reduce childhood obesity among low-income populations. (Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS))

Interventions to Increase Healthy Eating and Physical Activity in Schools   - The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends intervention approaches that combine meal or fruit and vegetable snack interventions with physical activity interventions based on findings that these combined interventions increase students’ physical activity, modestly increase their fruit and vegetable consumption, and decrease the number of students who are overweight or have obesity. (Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF))

Local Health Department Role in Preventing and Reducing Obesity and Chronic Diseases among Children and Youth   - Issue brief that describes the childhood obesity epidemic and discusses the emergence of chronic disease in children, specifically diabetes and hypertension. The issue brief also identifies strategies and resources to help local health departments (LHDs) address this public health challenge in their communities. Free registration is required for access. (National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO))

MedlinePlus - Obesity in Children   - Information for parents, consumers, and health professionals to help understand and cope with childhood obesity. (National Library of Medicine (NLM), NIH)

National Youth Sports Strategy   - The National Youth Sports Strategy is an essential resource for policymakers and key decision-makers in youth sports. It aims to unite U.S. youth sports culture around a shared vision: that one day, all young people will have the opportunity, motivation, and access to play sports — regardless of their race, ethnicity, sex, ability, or ZIP code. Based on research and best practices from the scientific community and successful youth sports programs across the United States, it offers actionable strategies for parents, coaches, organizations, communities, and policymakers to support youth sports participation for all. (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP), HHS)

Obesity in Children and Adolescents: Screening   - The USPSTF recommends that clinicians screen for obesity in children and adolescents 6 years and older and offer or refer them to comprehensive, intensive behavioral interventions to promote improvements in weight status. (U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF))

Partnership for a Healthier America   - The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) is devoted to working with the private sector to ensure the health of our nation's youth by solving the childhood obesity crisis.

Physical Activity Case Studies   - A series of seven case studies on successful campaigns to increase physical activity throughout the nation. These new resources tell the stories of state- and local-level campaign wins for active transportation funding, Safe Routes to School, Complete Streets, shared use, and environmental justice policies. (American Heart Association)

RWJF Childhood Obesity   - The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is dedicated to reversing America's childhood obesity epidemic and to advancing changes in public policy, community environments, and industry practices to ensure that all children across the nation have opportunities to achieve a healthy weight. (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF))

State of Childhood Obesity   - Explore interactives with the latest data, find expert insights about policies and programs that can help kids grow up healthy, and read stories about communities taking action to prevent obesity. (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF))

Voices for Healthy Kids Toolkits   - Healthy eating and physical activity toolkits to promote healthy lifestyles for children. Site also links to grant opportunities related to child obesity, nutrition, and physical activity. (American Heart Association)

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Data and Statistics

Adult Obesity Prevalence Maps   - Maps depicting the prevalence of obesity for all U.S. states based on Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data. The site also provides obesity data maps by state and territory, PowerPoint slides, and information about the data methodology and previous years. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HHS)

CDC Vital Signs - Adult Obesity   - Recent data on adult obesity gathered from CDC's national monitoring systems. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HHS)

Catalogue of Surveillance Systems   - The Catalogue of Surveillance Systems provides one-stop access to over 100 publicly available datasets relevant to childhood obesity research. (National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research)

Childhood Obesity Measures Registry User Guides   - The Measures Registry User Guides are designed to: provide overviews of measurements, describe general principles of measurement selection, present case studies to walk researchers through selecting appropriate measures, and direct researchers to additional resources and sources of useful information. Measurement user guides are available for individual diet, food environment, individual physical activity, and physical activity environment. (National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research)

Global Database on Body Mass Index   - This database provides both national and sub-national adult underweight, overweight and obesity prevalence rates by country, year of survey and gender. (World Health Organization (WHO))

Measures Registry   - The NCCOR Measures Registry is a searchable database of diet and physical activity measures relevant to childhood obesity research. The purpose of this registry is to promote the consistent use of common measures and research methods across childhood obesity prevention and research at the individual, community, and population levels. (National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research)

National Obesity Monitor   - Interactive dashboard allows users to explore more than 40 years of obesity rate data, including trends over time by age group, sex, race, and ethnicity. (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF))

Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity: Data, Trends and Maps   - Aan interactive database that provides information about the health status and behaviors of Americans, state-by-state, via clickable maps, charts, and tables. Topics include obesity, breastfeeding, physical activity, and other health behaviors and related environmental and policy data from multiple sources. (National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC)

State of Obesity Rates & Trends   - Analysis of obesity rates based on data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). This resource includes interactive maps, data snapshots of state obesity rankings, and policy approaches for preventing and reducing obesity. (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF))

The National Weight Control Registry   - The NWCR was developed to identify and investigate the characteristics of individuals who have succeeded at long-term weight loss. The NWCR annually tracks over 10,000 individuals who have lost significant amounts of weight and kept it off for long periods of time. (Brown Medical School)

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Legislation and Policy

ACPM Advocacy   - Practice policy statements, public policy statements, position statements, and patient education statements consistent with scientific principles of the discipline of preventive medicine. (American College of Preventive Medicine)

CDC Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity - Legislation   - This dataset contains policy data for 50 US states and DC from 2001 to 2017. Data include information related to state legislation and regulations on nutrition, physical activity, and obesity in settings such as early care and education centers, restaurants, schools, work places, and others. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HHS)

Healthy States: Obesity   - Publications and resources designed to provide state legislators with concise, up-to-date information on obesity. (Council of State Governments)

Obesity Legislation Database   - The legislation database tracks state and federal policies related to obesity and diet-related diseases in issue areas including access to healthy food, breastfeeding, farms and gardens, school nutrition and physical activity, food assistance programs, marketing/advertising to children, menu and package labeling, and food and beverage taxes. (University of Connecticut Health Center (UConn Health))

State Policies to Prevent Obesity   - This feature tracks the status of each state's efforts on more than two dozen policies aimed at preventing obesity and supporting health in early childhood, schools, and communities. (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF))

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Grants and Funding

Children’s Healthy Weight State Capacity Building Program   - To develop and implement a Children’s Healthy Weight CoIIN, with the goal of increasing the proportion of children and young adults ages birth to 21 years who fall within a healthy weight range by supporting states to adopt evidence-based or evidence-informed policies and practices related to nutrition, physical activity, and breastfeeding. (Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), HHS)

Developing Interventions for Health-Enhancing Physical Activity (R21/R33 - Clinical Trial Optional)   - Funding for highly innovative and promising research aimed at developing multi-level physical activity intervention programs acting on at least two levels of the socioecological model and designed to increase health-enhancing physical activity: 1) in persons or groups that can benefit from such activity; and 2) that could be made scalable and sustainable for broad use across the nation. (National Institutes of Health (NIH), HHS)

MCHB Grant Challenges   - The Maternal Health and Child Bureau invites innovative ideas for low-cost, scalable, innovative solutions to prevention of child obesity, care coordination for children with special health care needs, remote pregnancy monitoring, and preventing opioid misuse in pregnant women and new moms. (Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), HRSA, HHS)

NCCOR Funding Opportunities   - This website provides links to funding opportunities generated by NCCOR members and others, such as universities and nonprofit organizations (National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research)

NIDDK Obesity Funding Opportunities   - The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) conducts and supports basic and clinical research on many of the most serious diseases affecting public health.

Notice of Special Interest in Understanding Factors in Infancy and Early Childhood (Birth to 24 months) That Influence Obesity Development   - The purpose of this Notice is to inform potential applicants to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), and Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) of an area of special interest in understanding factors in infancy and early childhood (birth to 24 months) that influence the development of obesity. (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), NIH)

Testing Interventions for Health-Enhancing Physical Activity (R01 - Clinical Trial Optional)   - Funding for innovative and promising research that tests multi-level physical activity intervention programs acting on at least two levels of the socio-ecological model and designed to increase health-enhancing physical activity: 1) in persons or groups that can benefit from such activity; and 2) that could be made scalable and sustainable for broad use across the nation. (National Institutes of Health (NIH), HHS)

The Physiology of the Weight Reduced State Clinical Trial Consortium (UG3/UH3 Clinical Trial Required)   - Following intentional weight loss, physiological processes including altered appetite and decreased energy expenditure create a tendency toward regain of lost weight. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites UG3/UH3 cooperative agreement applications from multi-disciplinary teams that propose to conduct collaborative mechanistic clinical trials focused on elucidation of the physiological mechanisms underlying individual variability in maintenance of reduced weight over time. (National Institutes of Health (NIH), HHS)

Voices for Healthy Kids Grants   - The goal of the grant opportunities within this initiative is to make effective strategic investments in ongoing state, local, and tribal public policy issue campaigns in order to increase public policy impact on healthy weight and living among children. (American Heart Association)

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Training and Continuing Education

    • + Upcoming Events

Improving Obesity Care Continuing Medical Education (CME) Course   - This free, one-hour, online accredited course is for health professionals (clinicians, nurses, social workers and dietitians, and trainees) to improve the quality of care for patients with overweight and obesity, and help reduce weight stigmatization in clinical settings. (University of Connecticut, Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity)

Obesity Classified as a Disease: Improve Education with TRAIN   - Education and training opportunities are essential in developing obesity interventions. TRAIN, the nation's premier learning management network for public health professionals and volunteers, offers local, state, and national trainings that can be used in developing obesity prevention and education initiatives. (Public Health Foundation (PHF))

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Conferences and Events

Preventing Childhood Obesity – Eating Better, Moving More   - Webinar from August 2018 provides the definition of child obesity, disparities, health risks, and focuses on how public health professionals can combat pediatric obesity in their communities. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HHS)

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