Penn State institute to lead national effort to combat childhood obesity

Penn State institute to lead national effort to combat childhood obesity

New organization will expand opportunities for researchers and educators to partner with communities in solving this growing national health crisis

University Park, Pa. -- It's a difficult trick in this day and age -- maintaining a healthy balance between calories consumed from foods and calories used in physical activity. Children have traditionally been much better at this energy-balancing act, but that's become less true over the past few decades as childhood obesity rates have ballooned across Pennsylvania and the nation. While researchers have identified many possible causes of this caloric imbalance, they haven't yet found the best way to reverse this trend.

A new organization housed at Penn State hopes to change that. The Institute for Collective Advancement of Activity and Nutrition (I-CAAN), a joint initiative between Penn State Outreach and the College of Health and Human Development, will foster and utilize Penn State faculty research to provide actionable strategies and build national capacity for multi-sector, multi-level collaboration that creates social change supporting healthy eating and active living.

According to Allison Topper, who will serve as executive director of the institute, "Despite a multitude of obesity prevention efforts across the country, the prevalence of childhood obesity continues to rise. Unfortunately, many of these programs operate in isolation, rather than in concert with other efforts to create a multi-setting approach that addresses the issue comprehensively. I-CAAN will provide a bridge between national leaders and state and local partners to mobilize the coordinated, collective action needed for large-scale, lasting change."

I-CAAN, an outgrowth of Pennsylvania Advocates for Nutrition and Activity (PANA), will employ PANA's successful social marketing model of bringing together many different public and private partners to create simultaneous change in school, community and health-care settings. Unlike many of the isolated programs that occur at one school and hope behavior change will spread from there, PANA has created one of the only coalitions in the country that has applied CDC funding at a statewide and multi-sector level for obesity prevention projects.

Established by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and supported by federal funding from the Centers for Disease Control, PANA has been in operation since 2003. Its accomplishments include the innovative and widespread Keystone Healthy Zone (KHZ) schools campaign, a free annual program that provides schools with access to resources, promotional events and mini-grants for improving nutrition and increasing physical activity. In only three years, KHZ has enrolled an impressive 79 percent of Pennsylvania's 501 school districts, reaching 1,677 schools and 913,000 students in 2006.

To extend these principles outside the classroom and beyond the school year, PANA also developed the Keystone Active Zone (KAZ) campaign, which helps create county-level partnerships with recreation, health and education professionals to promote local parks and trails as great places for physical activity. Thirty-two counties have joined the program since KAZ was launched in June 2005 -- a participation rate of nearly half the state in just over 18 months.

In addition, PANA has designed a Safe Routes to School program that has assisted nearly 300 communities in implementing walk-to-school policies, provided crucial educational outreach and tools to support the state's recent Growth Screening initiative in schools, and registered 30 Pennsylvania communities -- far more than any other state -- for WeCan! (Ways to Enhance Children's Activity and Nutrition), a National Institutes of Health healthy weight campaign.

PANA recently received a $1 million grant from the Highmark Foundation to launch its new youth-based cause campaign, NRG-Powered by Choice, as one of the five signature programs in the Highmark Healthy High 5 initiative. NRG (text lingo for "energy") empowers youth aged 12-18 to lead changes that support a balance of healthy eating and active lifestyle choices in schools and communities. The campaign provides adult leaders, such as teachers and group advisers, with a framework to engage youth in these healthy change efforts.

Topper said I-CAAN will serve as a vehicle for Penn State faculty and staff to extend their research and expertise on obesity-related activities nationwide. This work will include collaborating with colleagues at Penn State and other institutions, analyzing PANA's existing data on its obesity intervention programs in schools, communities and health-care settings, and acting as a central hub for obesity prevention information and research.

Fred Vondracek, interim dean of the College of Health and Human Development, said, "Penn State faculty in multiple colleges and disciplines are actively engaged in research, outreach and clinically based projects that address the prevention and treatment of obesity and its complications. Their content expertise combined with the delivery potential of I-CAAN and Outreach as a whole position Penn State to be a driving force in effecting change in this area."

As a part of Penn State Outreach, I-CAAN will utilize other components of the broader Outreach system, including Cooperative Extension, Continuing Education, and Workforce Development units, to transform academic findings into community solutions. Vice President for Outreach Craig D. Weidemann said, "Penn State is committed to developing innovative approaches to community engagement. PANA and I-CAAN are major elements of this focus on connections and bridge-building."

Wayne Smutz, co-principal investigator for Penn State's FOCUS Project (Forming Outreach Community University Systems for Engagement), funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, noted that "I-CAAN will provide a unique vehicle through which Penn State can help communities and schools to address a critical societal problem."

The following Penn State units are collaborating with I-CAAN: the Prevention Research Center, the Center for Food Innovation, the Center for Recreation and Healthy Lifestyles, the Department of Nutritional Sciences, the Department of Kinesiology, the Nutrition Education Network, the Smeal College of Business' Department of Marketing, the Hamer Center for Community Design Assistance, the Center for Rural Education, the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center's Obesity Initiative, and Cooperative Extension.

I-CAAN also will work closely with Penn State's Center for Childhood Obesity Research, directed by Leann L. Birch, distinguished professor of human development. The center conducts research to determine what works best in preventing childhood obesity.

Penn State faculty and Outreach staff members will serve on I-CAAN's Advisory Council. A National Partner Advisory Council also will be established.