Alliance for a Healthier Generation Designates September 'Go Healthy Month'

The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a joint partnership of the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation, has announced that during September, which the alliance has designated as Go Healthy Month, it will work to expand its empowerME movement while encouraging teens and "tweens" to eat better, be more active, and become advocates in the fight against the country's obesity epidemic.

Kicking off the month in New York City, the alliance held a youth forum at the Vanderbilt YMCA that provided more than a hundred and fifty teens with opportunities to discuss the importance of being healthy and sharing ideas about how to help their families and communities eat healthier and get more physical activity. Already more than a million strong, the empowerME movement will encourage its members to attend or organize similar events in their own communities.

Throughout the month, empowerME will host dozens of Go Healthy Month events, including youth-hosted forums in fourteen cities in partnership with local AHA or YMCA affiliates. In addition, the alliance will run its signature field-day, community event for families, Recess ROCKS!, in cities such as New York, Little Rock, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

"America's kids are facing unprecedented rates of obesity," said Alliance for a Healthier Generation executive director Ginny Ehrlich. "By joining together to fight this epidemic, they are inspiring each other to live healthier. Through Go Healthy Month and the empowerME Movement, we hope to empower more than two million kids to make better choices now to ensure an impact on their health and quality of life in the future."

“Youth Empowered to Join Movement and Go Healthy in September.” William J. Clinton Foundation Press Release 9/02/09.

Primary Subject: Health
Secondary Subject(s): Children and Youth
Location(s): National

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