US Kids Covered by Children's Health Insurance Program to Benefit from Childhood Obesity Project

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched a new initiative for American kids to check obesity during childhood.

The project mainly aims to target children between the ages of 2 to 12 years covered by the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

CHIP provides low cost health insurance to more than 7 million children from working families.

Although childhood obesity rates are high overall, those for minority and low-income communities in particular are even higher. Many diseases linked to childhood obesity can be prevented, such as type 2 diabetes, asthma and heart disease.

The effort will make use of both primary care and public health care to support it.

The Affordable Care Act will enable the childhood obesity project to build on existing community programs. It will also identify effective health care and community strategies to support healthy eating and active living habits to help combat childhood obesity.

The Act proposes to support these efforts through a four-year Childhood Obesity Demonstration Project with $25 million in funding awards.

Source: Medindia