Extension Workshop to Tackle Childhood Obesity

PUYALLUP, Wash. — Obesity in the United States has been declared an epidemic, and childhood obesity threatens the health and well being of our children. What can we do to combat the growing problem of childhood obesity?

That is the topic of a workshop for extension nutritionists and educators from state universities and land grant colleges throughout the western United States to be held in Seattle next week, the first of several regional workshops to be held around the country.

The one-day workshop will be held on Tuesday, Dec. 7, at the Red Lion Inn, 1415 5th Avenue, Seattle. Washington State University, and the Food and Society Committee of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges are cosponsors.

Among the nationally known speakers at the workshop will be Joanne Ikeda and Patricia Crawford, co-directors of the University of California Berkeley Center for Weight and Health.

Ikeda, a cooperative extension nutrition education specialist, is a nationally recognized expert on pediatric obesity and an advocate for “size acceptance,” an approach to obesity treatment that emphasizes health promotion rather than weight loss.

Crawford, also a UC Berkeley cooperative extension specialist, has directed two long-term studies on the development of obesity in children and is the co-author of a program titled “Children and Weight: What Health Professionals Can Do About It.”

Crawford will address the workshop at 10 a.m., and Ikeda will speak at 10:45 a.m.

A 2 p.m. panel discussion on building partnerships to prevent childhood obesity will feature Sylvia Moore, professor at the University of Wyoming and affiliated professor with the University of Washington; Madeline Sigman-Grant, professor and extension specialist with the University of Nevada; and Lynn Paul, food and nutrition specialist at Montana State University.

Childhood obesity workshops will be held in other regions of the country early next year, culminating in a final meeting in the Washington DC area. The workshops conclude the W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded Food and Society Project, conducted by the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. NASULGC will use the regional workshops to launch a national obesity education initiative with cooperative extension leading the effort.

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