The Little Rock, Arkansas-based William J. Clinton Foundation, in partnership with the American Heart Association, has announced a new national initiative to fight childhood obesity.

According to the foundation, more than twice as many children — and almost three times as many teens — are overweight today than in 1980. And overweight children and adolescents have about a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight adults, increasing their risk for heart disease. The joint initiative will focus on working with the food and restaurant industry to improve the quality of their offerings and to develop marketing and promotion strategies to support environmental change within the industry, increasing physical activity and improving nutrition in schools across the country, and creating a campaign to engage kids in taking steps to make healthy lifestyle choices. The group also will work with the media to encourage healthier lifestyles for young people.

"Health security has been one of the primary missions of my foundation since we started, and I've spent most of my life trying to help give children a better future, so I am really excited about this effort to promote healthier lifestyles for children," said former president Bill Clinton. "After my personal exposure to heart disease and surgery, I wanted to find some way to use that experience to help others. With this initiative, we can help turn young people's lives around and give them hope for a healthier future."

The American Heart Association, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has released A Nation at Risk: Obesity in the United States, a statistical sourcebook of facts about obesity. To download the complete publication (42 pages, PDF), visit: http://www.americanheart.org/downloadable/heart/
1114880987205NationAtRisk.pdf.