The Cooperative Extension system is uniquely positioned to lead rural community efforts to prevent obesity in early childhood. This article explores best practices in promoting healthy weights among young children and shares examples and resources relevant to Extension programming. The West Virginia (WV) Healthy Children Project aims to improve…

Early care and education settings are essential partners in the battle against childhood obesity. We describe an Extension-facilitated early childhood obesity prevention intervention conducted in 25 rural early care and education settings. A total of 148 policy, systems, or environmental changes were achieved, reaching approximately 450 young…

The study aimed to explore how weight changes from childhood to adolescence influenced the performances of physical fitness. The participants (N = 115) were pre-tested when they were in kindergarten, first, or second grades (mean age = 7.25). The same participants were post-tested again after 6 years. The President's Challenge test battery was…

The prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents from low-income families in the USA has become a significant concern over the last 20 years. One of the major contributors to this problem is the lack of physical activity. The purpose of this paper is to describe initiatives designed to: (1) engage young children in physical activity during…