News article

White House Taskforce on Childhood Obesity prominently features breastfeeding

May 12, 2010

Washington, DC– As part of its campaign to end childhood obesity, the White House just released a series of 70 specific recommendations, four of which involve breastfeeding as an obesity preventive measure. The four measures are as follows:

• Recommendation 1.3: Hospitals and health care providers should use maternity care practices that empower new mothers to breastfeed, such as the Baby-Friendly hospital standards.
• Recommendation 1.4: Health care providers and insurance companies should provide information to pregnant women and new mothers on breastfeeding, including the availability of educational classes, and connect pregnant women and new mothers to breastfeeding support programs to help them make an informed infant feeding decision.
• Recommendation 1.5: Local health departments and community-based organizations, working with health care providers, insurance companies, and others should develop peer support programs that empower pregnant women and mothers to get the help and support they need from other mothers who have breastfed.
• Recommendation 1.6: Early childhood settings should support breastfeeding.

In February 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama launched the Let’s Move! Campaign with the goal of solving the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation. As part of this effort, President Barack Obama established the Task Force on Childhood Obesity to develop and implement an interagency plan that details a coordinated strategy, identifies key benchmarks, and outlines an action plan to end the problem of childhood obesity within a generation. The action plan defines the goal of ending childhood obesity in a generation as returning to a childhood obesity rate of just 5 percent by 2030, which was the rate before childhood obesity first began to rise in the late 1970s.

The website for the Let’s Move! campaign contains the downloadable report to the president from the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, Solving the problem of childhood obesity within a generation. It also includes recommendations for families to reduce childhood obesity by providing information on simple ways to make healthy choices for the family.