Partnership for a Healthier America Thanks Beyonce for Helping America's Youth Move More with Flash Workout Initiative

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May 03, 2011, 01:40 ET

WASHINGTON, May 3, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Lawrence A. Soler, CEO of the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA)– an organization focused on solving the nation's childhood obesity crisis –today issued the following statement on the National Association of Broadcaster Education Foundation's (NABEF) Let's Move! Flash Workout Initiative featuring Grammy-award winning superstar, Beyonce:

"Sedentary behavior plays a key role in the childhood obesity crisis and it will take all of us working together – the private sector, non-profits and government – to get kids off the couch and moving. I can think of few better than Beyonce to help show our nation's children that they can become healthier by including physical activity in their daily lives. Through this initiative, NABEF will help create a new path towards improved health for our children. I am hopeful that more role models, from parents to athletes to recording stars, take their queue from Beyonce and continue to join the fight."

The National Middle School Association (NMSA), the National School Boards Association (NSBA) and the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) assisted NABEF in coordinating the participation of 600 middle schools across the country in this afternoon's simultaneous, pre-choreographed dance routine, which will occur at 1:42 p.m. Eastern Time. Today's event falls during National Physical Education and Sport Week, May 1-7.

About the Partnership for a Healthier America

The Partnership for a Healthier America is an independent, nonpartisan organization that will mobilize broad-based support for efforts to solve the childhood obesity challenge. Core activities of the Partnership with include:

Developing a strong membership network of leaders across sectors with commitment to scaling meaningful and measurable solutions;
Convening members annually to affirm, align, and announce commitments;
Promoting broad understanding among all sectors about the role healthy food, physical activity, and the environment play in reversing the childhood obesity epidemic;
Facilitating and measuring the impact of members' commitments against clear and transparent targets; and
Connecting potential partners in the private and nonprofit sectors to each other and to the correct points of contact in government to ensure efficient leveraging of actions, and sharing of knowledge and lessons learned at the community, state, and national levels.

The Partnership emerged out of a series of conversations between The California Endowment, Kaiser Permanente, Nemours, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, which is a partnership with the American Heart Association and the Clinton Foundation. SNR Denton LLP has provided valuable pro-bono operational and legal support in establishing the Foundation. The Brookings Institution has also contributed thought leadership to the effort.

For more information about the Partnership for a Healthier America, please visit www.aHealthierAmerica.org.

SOURCE Partnership for a Healthier America