NAACP's Childhood Obesity Advocacy Manual: Evidence-based community advocacy for policy change

African American children and adults suffer from disproportionate rate of obesity perpetuated by communities with poorly built environments, a lack of affordable, accessible healthy foods, and schools that offer increasingly fewer opportunities for physical activity and foods that lack in good nutrition. The National NAACP and CommonHealth ACTION, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, have developed a childhood obesity advocacy manual to guide local units of the NAACP and their community partners in their efforts to change policies in the following three areas: built environment, food environment, and school-based policies. The disparate number of African American children affected by this epidemic calls for a unified stance to combat this silent killer. This national advocacy process will hopefully result in successful policy change on a local level, as well as directly impact the environments and conditions that lead to increased childhood obesity rates. The manual outlines a unique five-step process to support collaboration, knowledge, and skill-building around the emerging evidence-base to combat childhood obesity; builds community capacity for future advocacy efforts; teaches communities the necessity for upstream interventions to combat obesity; and encourages the effective use of data in policy-based advocacy efforts. The focus of this session will be to illustrate how this advocacy process is being implemented within at least two of these local NAACP units; give updates on community progress including challenges, successes, and “AHA” moments; and outline lessons learned during the manual's development and implementation process by CommonHealth ACTION and the NAACP.