Johnson & Johnson Successfully Combating Childhood Obesity One Student At A Time

  • 12 years ago
From Alexis LaScala, Johnson & Johnson Corporate External Relations Team

Recently, I attended a unique event to celebrate and recognize educators from four U.S. cities for their successful implementation of the Johnson & Johnson Gateway to a Healthy Community ™ – Healthier Kids (GHC-HK) program, an innovative effort to help combat childhood obesity. GHC-HK is a core curriculum-based program that emphasizes increasing physical activity in schools in Atlanta, Houston, Newark and Philadelphia. A key component is a proven program called Activity Works (AW) that delivers 12-minute video/audio exercise bursts in classrooms that helps to maximize academic performance and meet state mandates for physical education. Through this program, in just 85 days during the 2011-2012 school year, nearly 28,000 elementary school students in grades K-3 in over 1,100 classrooms in four cities burned more than 61 million calories!

While Johnson & Johnson and the GHC-HK program deserve kudos for lea