An innovative governmental approach to childhood obesity prevention in Chicago

The Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) concurs with President Obama's new Childhood Obesity Task Force model and the promising evidence that any successful intervention to confront the significant public health problem of childhood obesity must be based on the multi-level social ecological model of obesity prevention. Consequently, any governmental approach to curbing the childhood obesity epidemic must utilize policy and environmental strategies in a multi-disciplinary and inter-agency effort as we have had in place since 2006 when CDPH created the Inter-departmental Task Force on Childhood Obesity (IDTF) to reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity in Chicago. The IDTF began with four city agencies and has expanded to eleven. The mission of the IDTF is for Chicago's city government to have a significant role in confronting childhood obesity through an unprecedented level of coordination, the strategic provision of services, and the advancement of evidence-based practices and policies to improve nutrition and physical activity. The IDTF strategy employs a three-tiered prevention model. Tier 1 consists of primary prevention activities where IDTF agencies are coordinating, in an iterative process, their data surveillance, communications, evaluation, training and policy development activities to more efficiently promote physical activity and healthy nutrition to all Chicago's children. Tier 2 includes early childhood focused activities, including coordinated early childhood motor skills training and recently passed enhanced child day care standards. The last tier of the IDTF strategy, Tier 3, focuses on the development of “wellness campuses” throughout the City in community areas at high risk for childhood obesity.