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| Webinars in the Field

Conferences & Trainings

Webinars in the Field

Making Schools the Model for Healthier Environments

Bi-monthly series, Thursdays, 2 p.m. EST

Please join The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity and your colleagues in the field to discuss: childhood obesity research; best practices for addressing childhood obesity; and strategies for using policy and environmental change to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity.

The center's first round of webinars in 2010 is focused on, “Making Schools the Model for Healthier Environments.” Each webinar will be held bi-monthly on Thursdays at 2 p.m. Eastern (1 p.m. CST, 11 a.m. PST), and will discuss initiatives currently underway to ensure that schools become the standard for healthy eating and active living.

From preschool through 12th grade, schools can make a significant contribution to reversing the childhood obesity epidemic by enacting policies that promote the availability and consumption of nutritious foods and beverages, and by teaching healthy habits that can last a lifetime. The specific topics are:

  • Feb. 25 -- Seizing the Moment: Efforts Underway to Improve our Schools
  • March 11 -- Sowing Seeds: Improving Food Quality with Farm-to-School Programs
  • March 25 -- Setting the Standard: What Schools Are Doing about Competitive Foods
  • April 8 -- Let’s Get Physical: Being Active to Reverse Child Obesity

These webinars will feature researchers, advocates, and policymakers discussing solutions to problems that schools face in providing healthy food and opportunities for physical activity. These sessions will also provide resources to help make schools healthier.

Register for any or all of the four webinars in this series

Yale Rudd Center Soft Drink Tax Webinar

March 9, 2010, 2-3 p.m., EST

Please join Rudd Center Director, Kelly D. Brownell, PhD, for a discussion on soft drink taxes and how they can address obesity.

In addition to updates on the latest developments in state and local policies since our July 2009 webinar, Dr. Brownell will offer an overview of the rationale, relevant science, and economic and policy considerations of soft drink taxes.

The webinar will be listen-only, but participants will have the opportunity to type questions in real time.

You have two options for listening in: using voice-over IP (VoIP) through your computer (which incurs no additional cost and requires speakers or headphones on your computer -- a microphone is not needed) or using your phone to dial into the webinar according to the confirmation email instructions (and will incur a cost to you based on your regular long distance rate).

System Requirements:
PC-based attendees require Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
Macintosh®-based attendees require Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

Reserve your Webinar seat here.

NPLAN Webinar: Fresh, Local Foods in Underserved Communities

Feb. 23, 2010, 1 p.m., EST

Eating healthier foods – including more fresh fruits and vegetables – helps to reduce the risk of obesity and chronic disease. Families and children from low-income communities and communities of color are less likely to have diets that meet nutrition guidelines. Studies show that residents of rural areas, low-income neighborhoods, and communities of color have less access to supermarkets and large grocery stores and the fresh produce they sell.

Community public health advocates and policymakers can use multiple approaches to fulfill this need for fresh produce in underserved communities. They can work with local agencies to attract full-service grocery stores. They can also support purveyors of fresh produce, often grown locally, by establishing favorable policies for farmers’ markets and mobile produce carts. The purpose of this webinar from the National Policy & Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity (NPLAN) is to discuss the latter two types of policies, which bring fresh produce directly into underserved neighborhoods and create business opportunities for community members.

Through this webinar, participants will learn about ways to bring healthy foods to communities, outside of the traditional full-service grocery store. It will also provide mini-trainings on two of NPLAN’s model policy tools: Model Produce Cart Ordinance (coming soon!) and Land Use Protections for Farmers’ Markets.

NPLAN’s Model Produce Cart Ordinance, inspired by New York City’s Green Cart program and other mobile vending ordinances around the country, is a cost-effective and efficient means of increasing residents’ access to fresh produce. It creates a streamlined permit program for the sale of fresh whole fruits and vegetables from sidewalk carts. NPLAN’s Model Land Use Protections for Farmers’ Markets provides policy language that creates more opportunities for farmers’ markets and ensures their long-term viability as a community institution.

REGISTER HERE

Food Systems and Public Health: Linkages to Achieve Healthier Diets and Healthier Communities

Feb. 23, 2010, 1 p.m., EST

A recent double issue of the Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition bridges food systems and public health by identifying successful research, programs and policies within agriculture, food, and health to advance a food system that supports healthier diets and reduced obesity.

Spearheaded by Mary Story, PhD, RD, of the University of Minnesota, Michael Hamm, PhD, of Michigan State University, and David Wallinga, MD, of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, this dynamic collection of articles is the outcome of a conference held in April 2009 that focused on the food system, food, agriculture, and agriculture policy – a discussion which is central to healthy diets and obesity prevention.

Please join us for an overview of this issue, a discussion on the state of the science, and an exploration of policy opportunities to develop healthier diets and healthier communities. Featured speakers:

  • David Wallinga, MD, MPA, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
  • Michael Hamm, PhD, Michigan State University
  • Angie Tagtow, MS, RD, LD, Consultant, IATP Food and Society Fellow, and HEN/ADA Managing Editor

REGISTER HERE

NSBA Webcast: Policymakers Addressing Childhood Obesity Through Collaboration and Policy Change

December 1, 2:00 p.m.

Join national experts and local policymakers for an in-depth discussion of key strategies that state and local policymakers, including school boards and administrators, can use to address childhood obesity.

This two-hour webcast, Leadership in Action: Policymakers Addressing Childhood Obesity through Collaboration and Policy Change, will highlight the Leadership for Healthy Communities Action Strategies Toolkit, a resource for state and local policymakers who want to collaborate in creating healthier schools and communities through policy change. The webcast will focus on two strategies from the Toolkit that help local school leaders collaborate with other policymakers: “Safe Routes to School programs” and “joint-use agreements.” LEARN MORE

Upcoming Webinar in 12-Week Series

Changing the Channel: The Influence of Food Marketing on Childhood Obesity

Nov., 5, 2009, 12 p.m., EST

Advertising influences the choices we make, but what do we do when advertising starts affecting our children’s health? To prevent our children from being bombarded by unhealthy food marketing – whether it’s a television commercial, an internet advertisement, or food placement at the supermarket – we must ensure our children are exposed, and have access to, healthy eating options. This session will explore what groups are most heavily targeted by marketers and what public health advocates can do to take the remote out of the marketer's hands and ultimately change the channel.

Featured Speakers:

  • Jennifer Harris, Director of Marketing Initiatives, Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity
  • Vivica Kraak, Nutrition and Physical Activity Advisor, Save the Children
  • Pamela Weddington, Vice President of Communications, MEE productions
  • Margo Wootan, Director for Nutrition Policy, Center for Science in the Public Interest

This Nov. 5 installation is part of a 12-week webinar series, held every Thursday at 12 p.m. Eastern, focuses on childhood obesity research, advocacy, and current hot topics in the field. “Let’s End the Childhood Obesity Epidemic,” sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity encourages a lively exploration of the latest thinking on: childhood obesity research, best practices in the field, and resources to use policy and environmental change to create communities of opportunity.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE SERIES

Webinar Focuses on Collaborative Modeling for Progressing Research, Policy

The CDC Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity-Nutrition Branch and the CDC Division of Adolescent and School Health proudly presented “Collaborative Modeling to Address Childhood Obesity: Bridging Research and Policy Making,” by Karen J. Minyard, Ph.D., director of the Georgia Health Policy Center at Georgia State University.

As a part of an intensive, year-long health policy educational program, the Georgia Health Policy Center (within the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies) implemented a collaborative systems learning approach to build Georgia state legislators’ capacity for systems thinking. The objective was to provide state policy makers with a systemic perspective on childhood obesity and to base estimates of policy impacts on scientific research. This project brought together legislators, researchers and subject matter experts in physical activity and nutrition to develop a set of actionable policy options. Researchers gained a deeper understanding of the constraints facing policy makers, and policy makers had an opportunity to test policy options using the best data available.

The computer simulation model provides an opportunity to learn about the consequences of actions before policies are set in motion. The resulting model continues to provide a framework, a common language, and a credible and engaging tool that enables state legislators to engage in a more rigorous discussion about effective and feasible policy options for reducing childhood obesity. Download the slides and additional information. Listen to the webinar.

Webinar Series: Let’s End the Childhood Obesity Epidemic

Sept. 16, 2009, RWJF Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity

Please join the RWJF Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity for a lively exploration of the latest thinking on: childhood obesity research, best practices in the field, and resources to use policy and environmental change to create communities of opportunity. “Let’s End the Childhood Obesity Epidemic,” a 12-week webinar series, held every Thursday at 12 p.m. Eastern, focuses on childhood obesity research, advocacy, and current hot topics in the field.

Upcoming webinars in the series:

Making Local Communities Healthier: The RWJF Center Hosts an Expert Discussion on the latest IOM Childhood Obesity Report, Sept. 17

The Institute of Medicine (IoM) has just released a report called Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity, that outlines policy opportunities for local policymakers and communities to address the childhood obesity epidemic, with a special emphasis on populations at most risk for obesity. The IoM committee reviewed the published literature, examined reports and toolkits focused on community-based obesity prevention, and heard from experts on the role of local governments in obesity prevention.

This webinar highlights policy recommendations for communities to consider as they seek to address child obesity. Speakers will discuss the key policies as well as other important issues for communities to consider as they work to address childhood obesity.

The Face of the Childhood Obesity Epidemic, Sept. 24

The obesity epidemic impacts all races and ethnicities but some populations are disproportionately affected. Both income and race are strongly correlated with obesity prevalence. Seven of the top 10 states with the highest poverty rates also experience the highest rates of obesity. Within equivalent levels of socioeconomic status, race still serves as a determinant of health. Children, as a subgroup, are more racially and ethnically diverse than the nation’s population as a whole, and obesity prevalence rates are highest among children and adolescents of color.

This webinar illustrates research examining how obesity disproportionately affects specific communities, and strategies and insights into policy and environmental changes that may improve the landscape of childhood obesity.
LEARN MORE AND REGISTER

Webinar On Active Living in Rural Communities: Measuring Rural Environments for Physical Activity

June 12, 3-4 p.m. EST

A web-based seminar to help increase the skills of researchers and practitioners in measuring rural environments for physical activity will occur on June 12. The webinar -- Active Living in Rural Communities: Measuring Rural Environments for Physical Activity -- is to explore the extent that modifications to active living theory, methods and interventions are necessary for use in rural communities. The webinar will begin with a brief report on three recently completed rural active living research projects and how this formative research phase informed the development of the Rural Active Living Assessment (RALA) Tools. READ MORE

Four-part Webinar Series on Policy Evaluation

This web-based seminar series aims to increase skills of researchers and practitioners in policy evaluation effectiveness.

Increasingly, policies are being implemented at state and local levels that are intended to reduce obesity prevalence by improving diet and/or increasing physical activity. Rigorous evaluation of these “natural experiments” may be an effective means for the research community to inform policy on the issues of obesity, diet, and activity.

The four webinars were taught by Dr. Kathryn Newcomer, co-director of the Midge Smith Center for Evaluation Effectiveness and Professor of Public Policy and Public Administration at The George Washington University in Washington, DC.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE NCCOR WEBINAR SERIES.