When: Wednesday, June 1, 10:15 a.m. (immediately following opening remarks).

Where: Washington Convention Center, Room 203 A/B
801 Mount Vernon Place, NW
Washington, DC 20001

Attendees (Available for Q and A): The Honorable Mike Leavitt, Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services
U.S. Surgeon General, Vice Admiral Dr. Richard H. Carmona
Dr. David Schwartz, Director, NIEHS
Lynn Swann, Chair, President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports

Why: National and community leaders will join researchers to sort out how a child's environment increases the risk for obesity and to identify ways the environment can be changed to address this health epidemic. More than 700 people will gather for a two-day conference, "Environmental Solutions to Obesity in America's Youth," sponsored by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, one of the National Institutes of Health.

Background: The NIEHS is working to determine how the environment affects obesity rates and how it can build upon promising programs that create safe, healthy communities that help kids make better choices and have active lifestyles. In the last three decades, obesity has doubled among preschoolers and adolescents and tripled among kids between the ages of 6 and 11.

Conference Highlights: Government and community leaders will share their success stories. Speakers from such organizations as Latino Health Access and California Adolescent Nutrition and Fitness will discuss how they developed culturally appropriate environmental solutions to obesity in minority communities.

Representatives from Florida, Massachusetts, and North Carolina transportation organizations will discuss how they improved children's health by making walking and bicycling to school sa
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26-May-2005