The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the American Heart Association (AHA) have joined in an ambitious collaboration to reverse the nation's childhood obesity epidemic by 2015. RWJF will provide AHA with $8 million in initial funding to create and manage an advocacy initiative focused on changing local, state, and federal policies to help children and adolescents be more active and eat healthier foods.

Under the new initiative, RWJF and AHA will focus on policy interventions to advance 6 priorities that research shows are likely to have the greatest impact on childhood obesity. AHA will develop the overarching strategy that connects efforts across all 6 priorities and will fund efforts in underserved communities for the last 3 of them:

• improving the nutritional quality of snack foods and beverages in schools
• reducing consumption of sugary beverages
• protecting children from unhealthy food and beverage marketing

• helping schools and youth-serving programs increase children's physical activity levels
• increasing access to parks, playgrounds, walking paths, bike lanes, and other opportunities to be physically active
• increasing access to affordable healthy foods

Both RWJF and AHA will focus on reaching communities hardest hit by the epidemic, including communities of color and lower-income communities.