Host a NCPTA Addresses Obesity Issue
One third of North Carolina adolescents are overweight or obese, impacting both health and academic outcomes. The North Carolina Parent Teacher Association (NCPTA) hosted a meeting of stakeholders to begin discussing the role of parent involvement in childhood obesity prevention. Participants represented national and statewide advocacy and non-profit agencies, state education and public health agencies, universities, school nurses, principals and parents.
Early this year, First Lady Michelle Obama launched the Let’s Move campaign to combat the epidemic of childhood obesity by providing schools, families and communities simple tools to help kids be more active, eat better, and get healthy. Empowering parents and caregivers is one of five main tenants of this effort. In alignment with this campaign, NCPTA is working with partners to identify and develop tools and resources to make it easier for parents and caregivers to make choices that encourage healthy eating and active play.
Committed to increasing parent involvement, NCPTA received funding from the NC General Assembly in 2007 to implement the Parent Involvement Initiative (PII). This successful program was expanded in 2010 with funding from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of North Carolina to include school health advocacy in one of the PII counties. NCPTA will work with partners to develop a module to mobilize parents to advocate for school health policy and environment change in the areas of physical activity and nutrition. To increase parent and caregiver awareness, NCPTA will launch the Just ASK (Advocates for Schools and Kids) webinar series this fall. Topics will include fitness testing, active play, healthy eating and school health advocacy.
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