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Mission, Goals, and Philosophy

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Our mission:

CLOCC's mission is to confront the childhood obesity epidemic by promoting healthy and active lifestyles for children throughout the Chicago metropolitan area. Our work will foster and facilitate connections between childhood obesity prevention researchers, public health advocates and practitioners, and the children, families, and communities of Chicagoland.

Our goals:

• To improve the science and practice of childhood obesity prevention.
  
  
• To expand and strengthen the community of public health practitioners, community leaders and organizations, clinicians, researchers, corporations, and policy makers working collaboratively to confront childhood obesity in Chicago and beyond.
  
  
• To expand the 5-4-3-2-1 Go!™ public education campaign to shift our local culture toward one that supports lifestyle measures that will bring about reduction in childhood obesity in Chicago.
  
  
• To cultivate a long-term, broad base of government, philanthropic, and industry funding to sustain childhood obesity prevention work in Chicago and beyond.
  
  
• To identify culturally appropriate and relevant childhood obesity reduction approaches that work and disseminate and institutionalize them at all levels of social ecology (individual, family, community, institutional, public policy).
  

Our philosophy:

1. Obesity is a complex problem, and culturally sensitive childhood obesity prevention programs and policies are likely to be more effective than treatment. Over 60% of adults and approximately 30% of children in the United States are overweight or at risk for overweight. Prevalence of obesity in adults has doubled in the last 10 years, and prevalence of overweight in children has tripled since 1970. Chronic diseases such as Diabetes Mellitus II are correlated with overweight and obesity. With the alarming increases in the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity and their correlated diseases, it is clear that prevention must become a public health priority.
   
   
2. Childhood obesity must be addressed at multiple levels which must include the individual, the family and peers, the community, and society. Prevention efforts focused on any one of these levels will fail without simultaneous, complementary, and supporting work at other levels. This means, for example, it is not possible to prevent or treat overweight in one child if the child's family does not undertake changes in diet and activity; that it is not possible for one family to sustain such changes if the community does not provide access to healthy foods and activity opportunities; and the communities cannot gain the necessary resources to provide what families need if the broader society promotes only high-fat foods and motorized travel.
   
   
3. There are biological and social reasons why community- and society-based childhood obesity prevention must be focused on preschool children and their families. Because of the timing of the adiposity rebound (a normal stage of development that occurs between the ages of four and six), this is a critical period in childhood for developing or avoiding overweight. Based on current literature, the quality of life in children who are obese is equivalent to that of children who are suffering from cancer and undergoing chemotherapy. As families, communities, and our whole society come together to confront the childhood obesity epidemic, it make sense to start with factors early in life.
   
   
4. Childhood obesity prevention must be evidence-based. The science of obesity prevention is improving rapidly, but there is too much that is unknown. We do not yet know the true rate of childhood obesity in Chicago communities at greatest risk (ie, those that have populations that are African-American, Hispanic, or predominately lower socioeconomic status communities). We hope that childhood obesity prevention work will help children grow well and feel good about themselves, but we need to find out if it may also increase the prevalence or severity of body image disorders in adolescents. To answer these and many other questions, obesity prevention programs and policies will require rigorous planning and evaluation.
   
   
5. Chicago is an ideal community in which to promote and study childhood obesity prevention. Available data indicate that Chicago children exceed the national average for obesity prevalence. Tens of thousands are affected by this condition. The city's size and infrastructure, its dynamic and diverse communities, and an active obesity prevention coalition make the work going on in Chicago nationally significant. CLOCC includes over 1,700 physicians, researchers, educators, advocates, and community leaders.