LITTLE ROCK—Arkansas is at the core of a national effort to reduce childhood obesity rates.

It all started in April 2007, when the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announced its goal to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States by 2015, and committed $500 million toward that end.

But such a major initiative needed a center to support policymakers and groups across the country working with similar goals, said Dwayne Proctor, director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s childhood-obesity program management team.

After a national search, the foundation asked the Arkansas surgeon general, Dr. Joe Thompson, if he would head such a center. He said yes. Now the third floor of the Victory Building in downtown Little Rock is home to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity.

It’s a joint effort by the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, which Thompson also directs, and Oakland, Calif.-based PolicyLink, a research institute that works to elevate successful local policies to the national level.

Proctor said childhood obesity is a critical issue.

“This may be the first time that a foundation has set a time frame, made it public how much money they’re going to put toward it and developed a strategic plan to reverse the epidemic,” he said.

The Arkansas center is playing a key role in meeting that goal, Proctor said. Since it was launched in January 2009, the center has developed relationships with about 500 groups that receive Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funding, Thompson said.

The foundation is paying about $5 million a year to run the center.

Arkansas and Thompson were singled out because of a measure signed into law in 2003 by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee, Proctor said. The act started a variety of initiatives aimed at childhood obesity, including removing vending machines from elementary schools, setting nutrition standards for school cafeteria food, increasing physical education and measuring students’ body-mass indexes.

Proctor said Arkansas success with the act “is really what’s galvanized the nation around the issue of childhood obesity.

“People are saying if Arkansas can do it, then certainly we all can do it, too,” he said.

Obesity is related to a person’s body-mass index, which is calculated by height and weight. A person is defined as obese if he has a body mass index of 30 to 35, and overweight if the body mass index is 25 to 29.9, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About one-third, or 32 percent, of children and teenagers are now classified as overweight or obese, according to CDC data released last week. Of those, 17 percent of Americans ages 2 to 19 are obese.

The condition puts children at high risk for developing serious health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease or stroke, said Paula Card-Higginson, deputy director of the Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity.

Different factors have contributed to obesity rates, such as an increased reliance on cars, busy lifestyles and more fast-food restaurants, she said.

“It’s been small, incremental changes that we make that have a great long-term impact on our health,” she said.

To reverse the trend, the country has to make it easier for families to choose healthful options, Thompson said.

“The goal of reversing childhood obesity nationwide by 2015 will require, really, a social movement to protect the health of our kids,” he said.

Angela Glover Blackwell, PolicyLink founder and chief executive officer, said her group works with communities that have made changes for residents and makes sure those ideas are shared on a broader scale.

“We literally try to be a bridge from the wisdom, experience and insight of local problem-solvers into the world of policy — local, state and national,” she said.

In Arkansas, Joy Rockenbach has worked for years to connect groups interested in reducing obesity rates. She is director of the Arkansas Coalition for Obesity Prevention, which affiliates with groups including the state Health Department, the AARP and state parks because more can be accomplished by working together, she said.

The coalition has designated five groups in Harrison, Batesville, Helena-West Helena, Magnolia and Little Rock as “Growing Healthy Communities” sites, Rockenbach said. They will each get $10,000 grants through Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shields Blue and You Foundation for projects to encourage physical activity and improve access to healthful foods.

The idea is that by sharing ideas, groups can motivate and feed off one another, said Card-Higginson of the Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity.

Rockenbach said the Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity is a valuable resource for groups statewide.

Jennifer Shaw, a policy specialist with the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, cited the Safe Routes to Schools program to improve safety and encourage children to walk or bike to school.

Thompson said the Safe Routes program is just one example of how federal policy can help local communities on childhood obesity.