Greater Birmingham Community Food Partners

Jefferson County Childhood Obesity Taskforce (from www.Jvuf.org)

We are the citizen-led working group entrusted by the Jefferson County Department of Health to lead and coordinate efforts addressing childhood obesity in Jefferson County, AL. Our group includes a variety of partners and organizations in Birmingham including the Jefferson County Department of Health, YMCA, Jones Valley Urban Farm, Children’s Hospital, Greater Birmingham Community Food Partners, and United Way.

We are coordinating activities with the Jefferson County Department of Health’s “Road Map To Health” initiative.

A Food Summit was held on June 21st, 2008 at Jones Valley Urban Farms and the YMCA Youth Center. The Summit explored how the food system functions in Jefferson County and how to improve it so more children and their families have access to fresh, nutritious, affordable food. We plan on this being an annual event.

Improving Policy:

We are developing a “Food Policy Council” to pro-actively influence local, regional, and national policy that would prevent childhood obesity.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is a great source of information on nutrition policy and how to make change and improvements. –http://cspinet.org/nutritionpolicy/index.html

In the Schools:

We are very excited about the USDA’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program that has become available to Alabama schools. We’re encouraging all schools that are eligible to apply. The handbook can be seen at — http://dpi.wi.gov/fns/pdf/ffvp_handbk_08_08.pdf

We have also been working with WAY (Wellness, Academics, and You)– http://www.colorful-way.com/programs. This program is associated with i4Learning and the Institute for America’s Health. We hope to see more of Birmingham’s schools include these nutrition and physical activity lessons into their daily curriculum.

Jones Valley Urban Farm’s Seed 2 Plate field trip provides farming, nutrition and cooking lessons to children in grades K-8 in the Birmingham area. Hundreds of area schoolchildren have increased their knowledge of the food system, growing and preparing their own food, and choosing to eat healthier foods since taking part in the program. The taskforce will continue to collaborate with Seed 2 Plate to provide these successful programs to children in our community. Visit www.jvuf.org for more information.

School Gardens not only connect children with healthy food and nature, but can also teach about history, math, economics and science. In addition, they’ll get exercise while gardening. For information and/or consulting on starting a school garden, contact Jones Valley Urban Farms — contact Jones Valley Urban Farm.