Healthy Eating and Physical Activity (HEPA)

Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years. In 2012, more than one third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese. Here you will find a variety of resources, links and state policy tools that contribute to the goal of promoting a healthy childhood weight for young people.

Healthy Eating and Physical Activity State and Local Policy

The Afterschool Alliance is working as part of Voices for Healthy Kids, an initiative of the American Heart Association and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to build a consortium around increasing children's physical activity and access to nutritious meals in Out-of-Time school settings. The Out-of-School Time Consortium creates healthier OST programs by increasing access to healthy foods and more time for children to participate in health promoting physical activity.
The OST Consortium will work to advance the following policy lever:

• Pursue policy change that requires out-of-school time programs to intergrate healthy eating and physical activity (HEPA) standards into recognition programs, accreditation programs, certification, and rating systems.

OST Consortium Advisory Organizations:

An integral part of our Voices for Healthy Kids' out-of-school time consortium is continual support of our out of school time leaders' efforts in the field. To ensure that practitioners stay abreast of the latest and greatest research, resources and campaign strategies to create healthier environments, Voices for Healthy Kids Action Center is building a national network to promote healthy lifestyles for our children in order to ensure they grow up at a healthy weight.  Whether it’s going to your local afterschool program to push for more physical activity and healthier food choices, joining your state’s afterschool healthy coalition, or taking part in a national day of action like Lights On Afterschool, you can play a part in this movement. 

Anyone who is actively working in his or her community to change policies and environments so all children can grow up at a heathy weight can get involved. Join today!

Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Guidelines and Education

• The Healthy Out of School Time (HOST) Coalition is an excellent source of program level resources and tools to promote active lifestyles in afterschool and summer learning programs, including the Healthy Eating and Physical Activity standards. This document provides up to date, evidence-based, practical quality standards for providing children with healthy food, beverages and physical activity in out-of-school time (OST).
• Healthy Eating in Out-of-School Time: The Promise and the Challenge - NIOST researchers used qualitative research methods to explore healthy eating concepts among OST program administrators, examined their perception of the importance of the childhood obesity epidemic in relation to their mission, explored perceived barriers to serving healthful foods and the potential utility of guidelines and other managerial supports in helping programs adopt healthy eating practices.
• State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America
• The Quaker Chewy "Get Active: Be Healthy Afterschool Toolkit" offers creative, easy-to-implement ways to integrate health and wellness into afterschool programs, including lesson plans, ideas for field trips and guest speakers, links to funding resources and more.
• Health-Related Behaviors and Academic Achievement Among High School Students — United States, 2015
• Center for Collaborative Solutions (CCS) has a useful guide called Changing Lives, Saving Lives: A Step-by-Step Guide to Developing Exemplary Practices in Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Food Security in Afterschool Programs.
• Visit the Harvard Family Research Project's Out-of-School Time Program Evaluation Bibliography and Database. It is a searchable database of evaluations of out-of-school time programs, including those related specifically to health, sports and recreation.
• Policies and Standards for Promoting Physical Activity in After-School Programs - This brief summarizes research on physical activity in afterschool programs and examines how policies can help afterschool programs more effectively promote physical activity and prevent obesity among children.
• The U.S. National Physical Activity Plan includes strategy 5 under the Education platform: provide access to and opportunities for physical activity before and after school.

Funding Opportunities

• National Parks and Recreation
• PEP Grant
• Voices for Healthy Kids' Campaign Grants
• The Finance Project. Financing Childhood Obesity Prevention Programs: Federal Funding Sources and Other Strategies (PDF).
• The Center for Health & Health Care in Schools. A list of private foundation and corporate health-related grant opportunities.
• Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative
• Aetna Foundation Health Grants
• Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation's Children Initiative
• General Mills Foundation's Champions for Healthy Kids Grant

Afterschool Alliance HEPA Resources

Afterschool Snack:

• Voices for Healthy Kids’ Announcement
• Make each day healthier for all children with Voices for Healthy Kids
• New study: Afterschool physical activity standards are widely adopted
• New report sees how state policies can promote Healthy Eating and Physical Activity
• Advice from the experts on successful campaigning for HEPA
• HEPA Implementation
• State Networks Implementing HEPA
• Afterschool Report Released at Congressional Briefing

Reports and Issue Briefs:

• America after 3pm: Kids on the Move
• Key to Health and Wellness for Teens and Pre-teens
• Health and Wellness Issue Brief 2010
• Health and Wellness Issue Brief 2006