Tipping the scales: Using the law to further childhood obesity prevention policy

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has committed $500 million to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015. To accomplish this ambitious goal, RWJF and its partners are tackling childhood obesity not merely as an issue of personal and parental responsibility, but as a societal problem requiring solutions that reshape children's environments. The National Policy & Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity (NPLAN) has been tasked with producing the legal research, model policies, fact sheets, toolkits and technical assistance that will increase communities' capacity to make healthier options more accessible to children.

This session will identify the benefits and challenges inherent in providing legal technical assistance nationwide on an issue as complex as childhood obesity prevention. NPLAN's unique collaborative structure, which includes interdisciplinary learning communities, external legal researchers and in-house staff attorneys, provides the breadth of expertise needed to create legally-sound model policies that are both creative and practical. NPLAN's model policies and tools span broad subject areas and include materials on vending in schools, marketing to children, and complete streets. In addition to discussing a number of NPLAN's model policies, the presenter will provide examples of local communities that are using NPLAN's legal technical assistance tools to move obesity-prevention policies forward. Finally, the presenter will hypothesize about how this national model might be used to address other public health challenges.