Join Let’s Move! Child Care today. And give your kids a healthier future.
Let's Move! Child Care
“The risk of obesity starts early
in life. Over half of obese children become overweight by the age
of 2, and approximately one in
five children are overweight or
obese by their 6th birthday.”
— The White House Task Force
on Childhood Obesity
Start early, start smart.
We understand the challenges you face as a child care professional, so we want to give you the support you need to give the children in your care a healthier start.
Today's kids are more likely to be overweight or obese.
Three times more children are obese today than just 30 years ago. Now, nearly a third of kids in America are overweight or obese. The rate skyrockets to almost 40% in African American and Hispanic communities. Plus, more and more children are being diagnosed with obesity-related conditions that were traditionally only seen in adults — like type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. Even more disheartening, many of these kids will experience serious conditions like heart disease, cancer, and stroke as adults.
You can be a child care champion for healthy choices.
Because you’ve dedicated your career to taking care of young children, you have the opportunity to help turn these frightening statistics around. As kids’ bodies and brains develop, they can form unhealthy food preferences and habits that are hard to break. That’s why the First Lady is launching Let’s Move! Child Care — a nationwide call-to-action that empowers child care providers, like you, to make positive health changes in children, early on, that could last a lifetime.
Our Collaborators: Who's Behind Let's Move! Child Care
Let's Move! is a comprehensive initiative from U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama that's dedicated to solving the problem of obesity within a generation, so that kids born today will grow up healthier. Combining comprehensive strategies with common sense, Let’s Move! is about putting children on the path to a healthy future during their earliest months and years.
At the launch of the initiative, President Barack Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum creating the first-ever “Task Force on Childhood Obesity.” The goal: To review all programs and policies relating to child nutrition and physical activity and to develop a national action plan to maximize federal resources and set benchmarks toward the First Lady’s national goal. Now, Let’s Move! Child Care is an extension of the First Lady’s efforts, reaching out to the child care providers on the front lines of early childhood education and care.
One of the nation’s leading children’s health systems, Nemours is devoted to treating and preventing illnesses from birth through adolescence.
Nemours also educates parents, children, teachers, child care providers, and the public through programs and initiatives like Nemours Office of Policy and Prevention — an original member of the Partnership for a Healthier America initiative and founding partner of Healthy Kids, Healthy Future — and Nemours Health & Prevention Services (NHPS) — helping people understand the causes and implications of obesity and promoting healthier lifestyles among kids and families.
KidsHealth.org (created by the Nemours Center for Children's Health Media) is the most-visited website in the world devoted to children's health and development at every age and stage.
To support collaboration among experts in the obesity prevention and early care and education fields, Nemours and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) formed the Healthy Kids, Healthy Future Steering Committee — an expert group of approximately 40 national leaders. Together, these experts are developing and implementing a strategic plan to advance obesity prevention and health promotion in early care and education settings for children from birth through age 5.
To help ensure that families throughout the United States have access to high-quality, affordable child care, National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) works with more than 700 state and local Child Care Resource and Referral
(also called "CCR&R") agencies nationwide.
