K!DZ Walk! attendee participates in a soccer exercise at Spelman College. Photo: Courtesy Spelman College

On April 14, more than 190 children and Spelman College faculty, staff and students participated in the first annual K!DZ Walk to combat childhood obesity. Held on the college's campus and coordinated by the Spelman student organization Taking Action to Overcome Obesity (T.A.T.O.O.), K!DZ Walk was packed with speakers and activities designed to encourage healthy living as a way of life.

"As noted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 17 percent (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged two to 19 years are obese," said T.A.T.O.O. adviser DeKimberlen Neely, Ph.D., associate dean at Spelman College. "Considering the unfortunate realities of childhood obesity in relation to several illnesses, it was important for Spelman to address these jolting statistics right here in our own community."

With a keen understanding of how obese children have an increased chance of developing heart disease, hypertension and Type 2 diabetes, and witnessing the progression of obesity among children in the West End community, T.A.T.O.O. coordinated diverse activities and speakers to show K!DZ Walk participants how to incorporate healthy habits into their everyday lives.

In addition to a 1.7 mile walk around Spelman's campus, the event included Chef Keon of the Young Chefs Academy, who gave a cooking demonstration while former NFL player Marcus Dupree and Atlanta City Council members Cleta Winslow and Natalyn Archibong discussed the importance of making healthy lifestyle choices.  
 

Gordon Freymann, Director of the office of health indicators for planning at the Department of Public Health, stan0sd with Wade Sellers, district health director for Northwest Georgia Public Health District after accepting the Sellers-McCroan Award.

Gordon Freymann, M.P.H., Director of the office of health indicators for planning at the Department of Public Health, was awarded the Sellers-McCroan Award at the Georgia Public Health Association Awards Luncheon on April 13.

Freymann conceived, brought to fruition, and has steadily maintained and improved the Georgia Online Analytical Information System, more affectionately known as OASIS. This user-friendly web-based resource brings epidemiology and population data into the hands of users as revealing health information. Numerous query, charting and mapping tools, populated with the user's choice of data, are available at the click of a mouse 24 hours a day.

The tool is used by reporters, students, researchers, grant writers, public health offices, community planners, interested citizens and more. In a typical month, there are more than 35,000 uses of the system. That's more than 200 users per work day hours and more than 3 uses per minute. For every work day hour, five maps are completed through OASIS.
 

Viewing and participating in Sope Creek's morning fitness program were, from left, Asst. Superintendent (Area 3) Dr. Doreen Griffeth, Cobb County Schools Superintendent Dr. Michael Hinojosa, First Lady Sandra Deal, Commissioner of the Department of Public Health, Brenda Fitzgerald, M.D., Martha Whalen, Sope Creek Principal and Representative Sharon Cooper. Credit Julia Curran

Sope Creek Elementary School students had the opportunity to share their early morning fitness initiative, dubbed the Sunrise Program, with First Lady Sandra Deal and others during an April 12 visit.

Deal, along with Brenda Fitzgerald, M.D., commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, Rep. Sharon Cooper and Cobb County Schools Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, witnessed students running, playing games, dancing and jumping to music for 20 minutes as they kick-started their day of learning with a daily high cardio fitness routine.

The program is of interest because the school has been tracking students' test scores and sees a correlation between the physical fitness of a student and improved test scores. Principal Martha Whalen and lead physical education teacher Shawn Maloney have teamed up with staff and teachers to make this exercise-driven start a daily routine for as many students as possible.     

The obesity epidemic is one of the most pressing health issues facing the nation today. More than two-thirds of U.S. adults age 20 and over are overweight or obese, while nearly one-third of the nation's children and adolescents age two to 19 are overweight or obese. Obesity contributes to five of the ten leading causes of death in America, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, stroke and kidney disease.

A multi-part, multi-platform event, HBO's Weight of the Nation is comprised of a series of four documentary films, three children's films, and up to 12 bonus short films.  The mission of this public education campaign is to accelerate efforts to eliminate obesity across the U.S.

CDC is working with HBO Documentary Films, the National Academies of Science Institute of Medicine, Kaiser Permanente and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation to roll out the community and state engagement component of the campaign. Activities that support the community and state engagement efforts will include regional screenings in several major cities, the distribution of up to 40,000 community action kits, an HBO web site and a social media campaign.  In addition, parts of the documentary series will be screened at the CDC's Weight of the Nation 2012 conference in Washington DC on May 7.