Strategies

Match disadvantaged or at-risk youth with volunteer mentors in school or community settings

Provide financial assistance to working parents, or parents attending school, to pay for child care

Restrict child-focused advertising for unhealthy foods and beverages via bans on unhealthy food and drink ads during children’s TV programs, product placement in children’s movies, etc.

Combine academic, mental and physical health, and social service resources in schools for students and families via partnerships with community organizations; also called community learning centers

Build, strengthen, and maintain social networks that provide supportive relationships for behavior change through walking groups or other community-based interventions

Engage a variety of partners in a highly visible, multi-component effort to increase physical activity, often with efforts to address cardiovascular disease risk factors

Assign higher costs to non-nutritious foods than nutritious foods via incentives, subsidies, or price discounts for healthy foods and beverages or disincentives or price increases for unhealthy choices

Expand refundable earned income tax credits for working individuals and families with low to moderate incomes

Increase family members’ support for physical activity, often via educational sessions on health, goal-setting, problem-solving, or family behavioral management

Adopt policies that allow custodial parents who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to collect all child support paid by the non-custodial parent; no portion is retained by the state