Partnership for a Healthier America Releases Second Report on Private Sector Progress Toward Childhood Obesity Commitments

WASHINGTON, March 12, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), which works with the private sector and PHA Honorary Chair First Lady Michelle Obama to garner meaningful commitments to help end childhood obesity in a generation, today released its second annual report on the progress of private sector commitments to address the crisis.

The report comes as PHA kicks off its third Building a Healthier Future Summit in Washington D.C., where leaders from across the private and public sectors are coming together to identify solutions to the childhood obesity crisis in the United States.

"PHA is proud of the good work our partners are doing to make healthier choices easier for busy parents and families," said PHA CEO Lawrence A. Soler. "If our partners wanted a quick moment in the sun, they wouldn't work with us. They join PHA knowing their commitments undergo verification by outside third parties—and that means accountability. But it also means leadership, which is what every one of our partners shows when they make these meaningful changes."

PHA's more than 60 partners – whose collective impact now reaches millions of people – make commitments with measurable outcomes that are verified by independent third parties and reported publicly by PHA. The 2013 Annual Progress Report is a glimpse at where each partner stands as they work to fulfill their commitments. While the vast majority of PHA's partners are in the midst of multi-year change, a few have completed their commitments.

Major data points from the 2013 report, verified by independent third parties, include:

• More than 45 million individuals – including more than 5 million kids – have been touched by PHA partner commitments
• PHA partners more than doubled the number of stores to areas that lacked access (from 141 to 372) to healthy, affordable food, serving more than 3.6 million individuals
• Partners increased by 50 percent the number of opportunities available for kids to be physically active
• PHA's first partner, the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, removed more than 6.4 trillion calories from the marketplace, as reported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• More than $11 million was invested by PHA partners to address the physical inactivity epidemic in the US

The full report is available online at progressreports.ahealthieramerica.org.

The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) is devoted to working with the private sector to ensure the health of our nation's youth by solving the childhood obesity crisis. In 2010, PHA was created in conjunction with – but independent from – First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! effort. PHA is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that is led by some of the nation's most respected health and childhood obesity experts. PHA brings together public, private and nonprofit leaders to broker meaningful commitments and develop strategies to end childhood obesity. Most important, PHA ensures that commitments made are commitments kept by working with unbiased third parties to monitor and publicly report on the progress our partners are making. For more information about PHA, please visit www.aHealthierAmerica.org and follow PHA on Twitter @PHAnews.

SOURCE Partnership for a Healthier America