Introduction: Childhood obesity: Media, advertising, community, and advocacy

Childhood obesity is a global public health problem. The prevalence of childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the USA and in other nations around the world, including both developing and developed countries, particularly in regions where the adoption of Westernized food consumption and sedentary lifestyles are evident (World Health Organization (WHO), 2010). About 155 million children worldwide are classi fi ed as either overweight or obese (Hossain, Kawar, and El Nahas, 2007). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the proportion of children (ages 2–11) and adolescents (ages 12–17) in the USA who are obese has increased threefold or more during the past three decades (Ogden and Carroll, 2010). Nearly one-third (32 %) of children and adolescents over 2 years of age are either overweight or obese, where approximately 17 % (or 12.5 million) of those are obese (Ogden, Carroll, Kit, et al., 2012). The obesity epidemic is nondiscriminating; it affects both boys and girls, across all states and socioeconomic lines and among all racial and ethnic groups, yet in disproportionate ways (Kumanyika and Grier, 2006; Ogden, Lamb, Carroll, et al., 2010; Singh, Kogan, and van Dyck, 2010; Wang and Zhang, 2006). Four out of 10 African-American and Mexican-American girls between the ages of 12 and 19 are considered overweight or obese (Ogden et al., 2012). Obesity prevalence is exacerbated among youth (ages 2–17) residing in economically distressed urban neighborhoods, in remote, isolated areas such as American-Indian reservations, and in areas of the Deep South and Appalachia, which includes the states of Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisiana, where concentrated poverty exists (Ogden, Lamb, et al., 2010; Singh et al., 2010; Story, Evans, Fabsitz, et al., 1999).