America SCORES Recognized by White House in the Fight against Childhood Obesity

In February, First Lady Michelle Obama unveiled the "Let's Move!" campaign, her plan to solve the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation. Joining in this effort, President Obama established a Task Force on Childhood Obesity to create a multi-faceted strategy for ending childhood obesity in the United States.

This month, the White House Task Force presented a report to the President entitled, "Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity." On page 76 of this comprehensive action plan in a section on the importance of after-school activities, America SCORES was featured. Discussing an evaluation conducted by our Bay Area affiliate, the Task Force's report highlighted that America SCORES is effective in fighting childhood obesity for urban youth.

From the Task Force Report:

"Soccer as a Building Block for Learning: America SCORES is an after-school program that combines soccer, creative writing, and service learning. With affiliates across the country, a pilot study of the America SCORES Bay Area in San Francisco showed that participants in the program had statistically significant lowering of BMI. An unpublished national evaluation also showed that participants had an increased level of physical activity, increased reporting of feelings of self-confidence, self-efficacy, and enjoyment in learning, increased reporting of reading enjoyment and longer time reading independently, and gains in writing achievement."

For a link to the full report from the White House, click here.

America SCORES applauds the First Lady's campaign to fight against childhood obesity. We are honored to be included in her efforts to end this epidemic within a generation.

For more information about Let's Move, click here.

To learn more about how America SCORES fights obesity, click here.