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Foundation Partners With Media Companies

The Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation has partnered with Discovery Education and the Meredith Corp. for the launch of two websites that address healthy lifestyles in schools and at home. A third website focuses on healthy living in the workplace. The HWCF/Meredith web-site, www.parents.com/hwcf, taps into Meredith's Parents publication, and helps moms make healthy decisions for their

WASHINGTON — The Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation has partnered with Discovery Education and the Meredith Corp. for the launch of two websites that address healthy lifestyles in schools and at home. A third website focuses on healthy living in the workplace.

The HWCF/Meredith web-site, www.parents.com/hwcf, taps into Meredith's Parents publication, and helps moms make healthy decisions for their families. The HWCF/Discovery site, www.energybalance101.com, gives educators tools to help students with healthy food choices, eating tips and physical activities.

An interface lets users easily transition between the websites.

“People today wear so many different hats, from employee to mom to other roles,” HWCF's executive director, Lisa Gable, told SN. “We wanted to cross-pollinate the information so that no matter which hat they're wearing, they can get the necessary health information.”

Formed in October 2009, the HWCF is a food and beverage industry coalition whose objective is to reduce obesity, especially in children aged 6 to 11, by 2015. About one-third of American kids are currently overweight. And it is estimated that by the end of this year, 20% of children in the United States will be obese.

The HWCF's mission is to help people achieve a healthy weight through energy balance — calories in and calories out. It's delivering this message in three areas — the marketplace, the workplace and schools.

The foundation is made up of 80 retailers and manufacturers, and sporting goods, insurance, restaurants and trade associations. Members have committed $20 million to the effort.

The Discovery website is open to all, but will be actively pushed to Discovery Education's pool of 21,000 elementary schools, 1 million teachers and 35 million students.

The HWCF is also launching a third website — YourWellnessAdvantage.com — with the National Business Group on Health. YourWellnessAdvantage.com will actively motivate employers to make it a priority to encourage health consciousness in their workplaces and healthy living among their employees, with a strong focus on reducing obesity. The site will be especially helpful to small and midsize companies, which until now had few resources to help their employees live healthier lives, according to Gable.

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