Reducing Obesity Among Chicago’s Children

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MEE helped The Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC) design better tools to communicate with the community about the impact of obesity on local children. CLOCC is a nationally-recognized childhood obesity prevention program housed within the Center for Obesity Management and Prevention at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. MEE conducted a series of small-group “Chat & Chew” sessions to learn, from the grassroots perspective, how the local environment supports or presents barriers to increasing physical activity and improving nutrition among Chicago children. We gathered a cross-section of service providers and CBOs that work on issues related to community development, youth development, obesity prevention and/or physical activity and nutrition.

MEE also conducted informal focus group sessions with 30 local peer leaders to help CLOCC get a better understanding of what youth members of peer-to-peer outreach teams would need in order to effectively promote its “5, 4, 3, 2, 1…Go” message to other youth in Chicago. We sought to learn the arguments and counter-arguments youth had about adopting such healthy lifestyle messages into their lives, as well as what types of promotional materials would be the most effective for grassroots outreach.

Using the information gained in the focus groups and Chat & Chews, MEE helped CLOCC adapt the MEE community-planning model for its own outreach efforts. We helped CLOCC recruit and train a Youth Outreach Coordinator to lead peer-to-peer outreach efforts in Chicago neighborhoods. Technical Assistance (TA) sessions prepared the organization to effectively implement logistics for its Go Team. MEE’s TA prepared CLOCC for an on-the-ground approach to mobilizing community members of all ages to lower obesity in Chicago.