WATERTOWN, Mass. and
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Bright Horizons
Family Solutions® and its Chief Executive Officer David Lissy were recognized at Partnership for a
Healthier America's (PHA) Building a Healthier Future Summit for
taking a leadership role in the fight to end childhood obesity and
promoting children's well-being. Lissy introduced First Lady
Michelle Obama, who delivered the
Keynote address during the plenary session on Thursday, February 26.
The Summit is one of the nation's premier gatherings of health
experts, policy makers, and business and industry leaders committed
to ending childhood obesity. Breakout sessions throughout the
Summit focused on topics including corporate innovation for food
health and wellness; sustainability and the future of food; and the
path forward to health equity.
"It is an incredible honor to not only join First Lady
Michelle Obama and PHA on this
critical initiative, but to also be recognized as an organization
that has led the way in providing early childhood settings that
that foster and encourage the development of healthy habits," said
Lissy. "This is truly a celebration of our commitment to children's
health, and recognizing the significant role that early educators
have in influencing the behaviors that children adopt at an early
age."
As the first national early care and education provider to
collaborate with PHA in 2012, Bright Horizons has served as an open
model for child care centers nationwide. As part of this
collaboration, Bright Horizons underwent a full evaluation of its
corporate policies and center practices surrounding nutrition and
physical activity. The evaluation confirmed that all Bright
Horizons centers always provide access to water during meals and
throughout the day, and fried foods and sugar-sweetened beverages
are never served. Children also participate in active indoor and
outdoor play through the day.
"Our collaboration with Bright Horizons has set a standard for
health and wellness in the early childhood education space,
encouraging companies to create healthier environments for the
children in their care by meeting requirements around nutrition,
physical activity and screen time," said PHA CEO Lawrence A. Soler. "We are proud of Bright
Horizons for being one of PHA's first partners, for completing its
commitment and for serving as an open model for others in the
industry. We look forward to continuing our work with them as a PHA
partner emeritus."
Bright Horizons' Well Aware curriculum focuses on health,
fitness and overall wellness for young children. It enables
children to gain an understanding and awareness of how their bodies
work, what their bodies need, and how to protect themselves.
Family-style dining, part of the Well Aware curriculum, gives kids
a chance to learn about food preferences. It also helps children
develop the ability to read their body's hunger cues, and determine
appropriate portion sizes depending on their appetite.
Bright Horizons provided the on-site child care program at the
Summit, available to attendees' children between the ages of two
and 12.
*A full version of PHA's Bright Horizons Progress Report will
be available in May
About Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc.
Bright
Horizons Family Solutions® is a leading provider of high-quality
child care, early education and other services designed to help
employers and families better address the challenges of work and
life. The Company provides center-based full service child
care, back-up dependent care and educational advisory services to
more than 900 clients across the United States,
the United Kingdom, Ireland, the
Netherlands, Canada and India, including more than
130 FORTUNE 500 companies and more than 80 of Working Mother
magazine's 2014 "100 Best Companies for Working
Mothers." Bright Horizons is one of FORTUNE magazine's "100
Best Companies to Work For" and is one of the UK's Best Workplaces
as designated by the Great Place to Work® Institute. Bright
Horizons is headquartered in Watertown, MA. The Company's
web site is located at www.brighthorizons.com.
About Partnership for a Healthier America
The
Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) is devoted to working
with the private sector to ensure the health of our nation's youth
by solving the childhood obesity crisis. In 2010, PHA was
created in conjunction with—but independent from—First Lady
Michelle Obama's Let's Move! effort.
PHA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that is led by some of
the nation's most respected health and childhood
obesity experts. PHA brings together public, private and
nonprofit leaders to broker meaningful commitments and develop
strategies to end childhood obesity. Most important, PHA ensures
that commitments made are commitments kept by working with unbiased
third parties to monitor and publicly report on the progress our
partners are making.
CONTACT: Meghan Kelly Daly,
617-673-7781
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SOURCE Bright Horizons Family Solutions