The University of California Cooperative Extension in cooperation with the California Fit WIC Project has compiled a resource kit that encourages communities to take steps locally to help reverse the alarming trends of child obesity.

"Children and Weight: What Communities Can Do" is a "how-to" guide for community leaders who want to start a coalition for preventing weight problems in children.

"We must change community environments so they are more supportive of healthy lifestyles, or we will not impact this problem," said UCCE nutrition education specialist Joanne Ikeda.

The kit is designed for health and social service professionals, extension advisors and school administrators, among others, and has been extensively tested in the field.

"The kit contains the essentials for establishing community coalitions, helping groups set goals, formulating action plans, and keeping focused and energized," says Kirstin Siemering, a UC Berkeley graduate student who helped develop the kit. "Often the hardest part in forming a coalition is getting started, so we focused on the nuts and bolts of organizing the first five meetings and made the materials as user-friendly as possible."

The "Children and Weight: What Communities Can Do" resource kit includes:

• Up-to-date research on childhood overweight, including best practices for prevention and addressing concerns about body image.
• Detailed guidelines for mapping community resources and developing an action plan.
• Step-by-step instructions for setting up and facilitating effective meetings. Agendas, overheads and handouts are included and can be tailored on the accompanying CD-ROM.
• Fact sheets on childhood overweight and "tips from the field" from professionals who have used the kit to implement projects.
• Print and Internet resources on childhood overweight and community building.
• "Make a Change," an inspiring 19-minute video that illustrates how communities have mobilized to improve kids' access to nutritious food and fun ways to be active. These model programs feature multi-ethnic communities in urban and rural settings in California.

Children and Weight: What Communities Can Do" (#3422) is available for $100 plus sales tax and shipping. It can be ordered from the online publications catalog: http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/.

Other sources: University of California, Davis