In 2013, the Florida Alliance of YMCAs was awarded a grant from the YMCA of the USA for a 22-month project to address childhood obesity in Florida. Florida Statewide Pioneering Healthier Communities (FL PHC) created a partnership of over 25 committed people from organizations throughout the state. Specifically, the FL PHC is a partnership of organizations and individuals working to ensure our children have increased access and opportunities for healthy eating and active living.
All Florida children have the opportunity to move more and eat smarter where they live, play and learn.
The mission of the FL Pioneering Healthier Communities Partnership is to strengthen relationships, leverage partnerships and resources and enhance collaboration to facilitate policy and environmental changes that will reduce the burden of childhood obesity in Florida.
In 2011, 6,212 students in 78 Florida public high schools participated in the Youth Risk Factor Survey. From this survey it is estimated that approximately 92,400 high school students (13.6%) are overweight. Trend data demonstrates that prevalence of overweight is higher among non-Hispanic blacks (17.2%) than non- Hispanic whites 911.8%). The same 2011 survey demonstrated that approximately 11.5% of the high school students surveyed were obese (78,200) with the prevalence being higher among males (15.2%) than females (7.7%) and higher among non-Hispanic blacks (15.7%) than Hispanics (11.4%) and non-Hispanic whites (9.6%).
Florida has a number of different partners that have elevated health and obesity among their organizations’ key priorities. There is tremendous coordination and collaboration as well as a history of working collegially together. There are vast opportunities for partnership in Florida; more of these will be assessed for participation on the FL Partnership.
Communities working to reduce obesity can click on this registration form to be added to an email distribution system for information on funding opportunities, resources and other information.
The College of Public Health at the University of South Florida is the parent organization for the Florida Prevention Research Center. The work accomplished here was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cooperative agreement number 1-U48-DP-005024 through 2019.