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Clinicians, families, and communities seeking to prioritize good nutrition and physical activity have a new ally—Shaping America's Health: Association for Weight Management and Obesity Prevention.
The mission of the new organization, created by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in August (but separately incorporated), is to enhance the scientific understanding of weight management in order to prevent overweight and obesity. The group plans to develop clinical guidelines and best practices for health care professionals in collaboration with the North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NAASO), and to publish its work through NAASO's journal, Obesity Research, or other appropriate journals.
"There cannot be too many voices speaking to health professionals and consumers about the impact of this condition, overweight and obesity," says Richard Kahn, PhD, ADA's chief scientific and medical officer. "The greater number of platforms, the better off everybody will be in the end."
Kahn says ADA decided to launch the new group because "we don't want to confuse the issue of overweight and obesity with diabetes."
Obesity itself is a disease, not just related to diabetes, Kahn notes. Cardiovascular disease and some cancer, as well as other diseases, are also related to obesity. "For ADA alone to take on this initiative wouldn't give it as broad an impact as if there is a separate organization," he says.
Kahn adds that because ADA already represents several constituencies—patients with type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, and gestational diabetes—it did not want to be perceived as reducing its activities or interest in diabetes itself.
"By forming this separate organization, we're also telling people that ADA continues to fight diabetes," he says. "And of course obesity is related to that. But now we have another group that is going to fight obesity."
Adopting an existing initiative as its premiere endeavor, Shaping America's Health will begin to address the nation's weight management challenges at four regional town-hall meetings organized by Shaping America's Youth (SAY). The first meeting will be in Memphis, Tenn., on September 17 at the FedEx Forum (see FYI). Organizers hope to attract more than 1,000 individuals to each meeting to talk with health care experts and politicians about what they need to improve the health of their families.
"The town hall meetings will provide critical grassroots input to build the foundation of a National Action Plan that will promote common language, goals, and standards to foster `best practices' from one family to a neighborhood, one school to an entire district, and one community to the entire nation," says SAY executive director David McCarron, MD, in a written statement.
SAY was first launched in November 2003 and is a public-private
collaboration including partners such as ADA, the Office of the Surgeon
General, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and corporate
sponsors including Campbell Soup Company, McNeil Nutritionals, Nike, FedEx,
and Cadbury Schweppes. 
Footnotes
More details about Shaping America's Health: Association for Weight Management and Obesity Prevention is available online at www.obesityprevention.org or by calling 703-253-4808.
The first initiative of Shaping America's Health will be to host four town-hall meetings through Shaping America's Youth (SAY). To register or ask questions, call 1-800-SAY-9221 or visit www.shapingamericasyouth.org.
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| DOC News | Diabetes | Diabetes Care | Clinical Diabetes | Diabetes Spectrum |
