Waters' illustrious footsteps. Local sports leaders and teams might like to engage in 'shape up' campaigns, such as rewarding students who do a required number of 'steps' per day. Up until this point, unfortunately, North Carolina's emphasis as a state has been on monitoring student's weight, rather than changing their behaviors. The "Healthy Schools, Healthy Weight" initiative focuses on providing toolkits to track student's BMIs and identify them as obese. Tracking BMIs (Body Mass Indexes) in rapidly-growing children can be difficult, however, and rather than identification, promoting healthy eating and movement for all children, before they become obese, rather than targeting obese students in the initiative and separating them during this emotionally fraught time from their peers might seem the better solution. But some individual school districts have provided shining lights in how to cope with the crisis. "Cumberland County recently received recognition for its "Shape Up, Live Healthy" district-wide campaign promoting good nutrition and physical activity" ("Pilot Program attacks childhood obesity epidemic through local schools, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, 2004).

Stopping obesity on the local level is likely to have to be the policy focus in the future, and preventative measures must be embarked upon on the individual level of personal fitness, through corporate initiatives, and innovative efforts of individual...

The state can still have a role rewarding programs that do work. This is the best way to address the specific needs of obese populations in the state, such as the poor, children, and working adults, and is likely to be the best way to treat the problem of obesity in a cost-effective, effective, and comprehensive fashion in decades to come.
Works Cited

2008 School Lunch Card." A Report by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Autumn 2008. Healthy School Lunches. 23 Nov 2008. http://www.healthyschoollunches.org/reports/report2008_intro.cfm

DeBare, Illana. "More employers offering pedometers to encourage fitness."

San Francisco Chronicle 14 Aug 2007. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/14/WALK.TMP

Duke Health. 23 Nov 2008. http://www.dukehealth.org/

Edible Schoolyard Project. Official Website. 23 Nov 2008. http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/homepage.html

The Obesity Epidemic in North Carolina." Eat Smart Move More. 2008. http://www.eatsmartmovemorenc.com/ObesityInNC/Doc/North%20Carolina's%20Obesity%20Epidemic.ppt.

Pilot Program attacks childhood obesity epidemic through local schools."

UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. 31 Mar 2004. http://www.sph.unc.edu/school_of_public_health_news/pilot_program_attacks_childhood_obesity_epidemic_through_local_schools_1313_8289.html