Lakeview Child Center Hamilton has been recognized for its efforts to prevent childhood obesity, receiving a designation as one of Michele Obama’s Let’s Move! Child Care facilities.
The program is one of 20 in New Jersey that have received the recognition.
Lakeview Child Center vice president LuAnn Wood said each of the company’s six centers are working toward earning the designation by 2014.
Lakeview Hamilton received recognition for its work promoting and implementing the goals of the First Lady’s initiative, including adopting stronger healthy beverage standards, increasing physical activity, limiting screen time, serving fruits or vegetables at every meal and supporting breastfeeding.
“Lakeview is determined to fight childhood obesity,” Wood said in a statement. “We have a responsibility as a childcare provider to instill healthy habits in our children and help them and their families make positive lifestyle changes.”
As an affiliate of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Hamilton, Lakeview Child Center has the ability to coordinate hands-on learning activities with hospital providers. Registered dietitians from the hospital’s SHAPEDOWN program — a 10-week weight management program for children and teens — teach monthly nutrition education at the Hamilton location.
SHAPEDOWN coordinator and registered nurse, Barbara Weber Berry, said landmark studies are demonstrating that dietary habits are impressionable at a very young age.
“Lakeview’s efforts to instill healthy nutrition awareness at the preschool level are significant because they are helping to turn things around before it’s too late,” Berry said in a statement.
According to The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, more than half of obese children become overweight by the age of two and approximately one in five children are overweight or obese by six years old.
Lakeview Child Center opened in 1985 and operates a network of six childcare centers throughout Central New Jersey, including Ewing, Hamilton, Lawrenceville, Mercerville, Robbinsville and West Windsor.
