Public Sector Strategies for Promoting Health and Wellness Across the Lifespan

The magnitude of the childhood obesity epidemic requires policy and environmental changes at many different levels of state and local governance. This presentation will explore action strategies policymakers can take to promote healthy communities. Highlighting the success of a local policymaker and a health professional advocate from a partner organization, the panel will speak to their experiences developing healthier and more viable neighborhoods and advise communities on tapping into a larger, collaborative network of social, economic and programmatic resources. The discussion will include a range of healthy eating and active living policy approaches local and state leaders can facilitate, including land-use policies (e.g. mixed-use development and improved public recreation and transit options), food access policies (e.g. incentives to attract supermarkets and farmers' markets to underserved communities), and school nutrition policies (e.g. ways to improve the nutritional quality of foods and beverages in schools). Through collaboration among states, counties, cities and schools, policymakers can meet their constituents' demand for healthy living as they take steps to reduce health care costs and improve health outcomes in their communities. The policy options outlined in this session are promising, evidence-based practices that advance the goal of reducing childhood obesity and build upon the work in which policymakers are already engaged.