On February 9, the White House officially kicked off First Lady Michelle Obama's childhood obesity initiative, the Let's Move campaign. The same day, a new foundation was launched to bring together public, private and nonprofit sectors to address the epidemic of childhood obesity and support the goals of the First Lady’s campaign. The two events clearly mark a turning point in the national movement to address the epidemic.

President Barack Obama expressed his support for Mrs. Obama's initiative by signing an Executive Order to establish a Task Force on Childhood Obesity. The task force will be headed by Melody Barnes, assistant to the President for domestic policy, and will include members of several executive departments and agencies, among them the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Education, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and the Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the First Lady. The group will draft an interagency action plan within the next 90 days that will outline strategies for combating childhood obesity across the country.

Let's Move was unveiled with speeches by Judith Palfrey, M.D., president of the American Academy of Pediatrics; Will Allen, founder and CEO of the nonprofit Growing Power; Mayors Chip Johnson of Hernando, Miss., and Joseph Curtatone of Somerville, Mass., who have been active participants in the Leadership for Healthy Communities program; and Tiki Barber, a former NFL football player, as the moderator. Tammy Nguyen, a sixth-grade student who helped plant the White House garden last year, introduced the First Lady. Mrs. Obama explained that the campaign’s overarching goal is to solve the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation, and she emphasized the role that everyone—including parents, educators, industry executives, policy-makers and community leaders—must play to achieve progress.  The Let's Move campaign includes four components: enhancing information parents need to make healthy decisions for their family, improving the quality of food in schools, improving access to and the affordability of healthy foods in communities, and increasing physical activity both in and out of schools. To watch the video of the event, please go to www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/let-s-move-kick.

Mrs. Obama also announced the formation of the new independent, nonpartisan foundation, the Partnership for a Healthier America. Mrs. Obama agreed to serve as Honorary Chair.  The organizations creating and supporting the partnership are the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The California Endowment, Kaiser Permanente, Nemours, W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

Also on February 9, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released its Food Environment Atlas, which provides county-by-county statistics on food choices, health and well-being, and community characteristics.  In addition, the beverage industry announced a voluntary effort to provide calorie information on the front of beverage containers, vending machines and fountain machines.

An op-ed about the importance of preventing childhood obesity from a fiscal perspective by Leadership for Healthy Communities Director Maya Rockeymoore, Ph.D., also was featured on The Huffington Post.