• Transforming Ideas Into Action
• Combating Climate Change
• Treating HIV/AIDS & Malaria
• Fighting Childhood Obesity
  • Why Childhood Obesity?
  • Facts about Childhood Obesity
  • President Clinton’s Call to Action
  • Our Approach
  • Healthy Schools Program
  • Industry Initiatives
  • empowerME Movement
  • What We've Accomplished
  • Get Involved
  • 10 Things You Can Do
• Promoting Economic Opportunity
• Creating Sustainable Development in Africa
• Enabling Sustainable Development

Healthcare Initiative

Children treated for obesity are roughly three times more expensive for the healthcare system than children of normal weight. To slow down this rising price tag, President Bill Clinton announced the launch of the Alliance Healthcare Initiative -- the first comprehensive effort by national medical associations, leading insurers, and employers to offer health benefits for the prevention, assessment, and treatment of childhood obesity. As a result of this collaboration and our agreements, close to 1 million children in America now have access to new healthcare benefits to combat obesity.

The Alliance Healthcare Initiative will:

• enable healthcare providers to be an active part of the solution to the obesity epidemic by providing children with primary-care visits and visits to registered dietitians (RDs) as part of their health insurance benefits;
• educate parents about the expansion of services available to their children as a result of this effort;
• continue to recruit health insurance companies and employers to participate with the goal of more than 6.2 million children -- 25 percent of all overweight American children -- having access to this healthcare benefit within the next three years.

Doctors will be reimbursed for bringing children back for follow-up visits and for working with them on the adoption of healthy behaviors. RDs also will be reimbursed for providing in-depth nutrition counseling over multiple visits to those children that are referred by their doctors. By working together, doctors and RDs will help children and their families adopt healthier eating habits to improve their health and weight. In addition, participating companies will have access to materials and resources developed by the Alliance to inform parents about childhood obesity prevention and treatment.

See what you can do to take part at healthiergeneration.org.