Over the past decade, numerous public and private funders have provided resources to states and communities to implement strategies to reduce and prevent childhood obesity. Recently, modest yet important declines in childhood obesity rates have been reported in several jurisdictions across the United States.

In 2012, the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) established a workgroup to better understand the possible drivers and contributors that may be influencing the reported declines in childhood obesity rates and to explore how these may be related to and part of other health promotion efforts.

This project aligns with two of NCCOR’s five goals: the first is to improve the ability of childhood obesity researchers and evaluators to conduct research and program evaluation; the second goal is to provide national leadership to accelerate implementation of evidence-informed practice and policy.

In December 2013, NCCOR convened a panel of experts with diverse and complementary backgrounds to solicit outside guidance on the project plan, methodology, and selection of sites that will be examined. The expert panel provided invaluable advice, leading to project implementation in 2014. In 2015, data collection was conducted which included exploring strategies used across a number of settings and performing interviews with key stakeholders. In March 2016, NCCOR released community summary reports from four sites across the country.

Read the site summary reports:

In March 2018, study authors published a special supplement in Childhood Obesity on the findings from the project. The supplement details the strategies and policies implemented in four diverse communities—Anchorage, AK; Granville County, NC; New York City, NY; and Philadelphia, PA—that experienced declines in childhood obesity prevalence from 2003 to 2011. Open access is provided for the six articles in this special supplement available at https://www.liebertpub.com/toc/chi/14/S1.

Childhood Obesity Declines Fact Sheet

Never miss a newsletter

We are social

Check us out on Facebook, LinkedIn,
Twitter and YouTube