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complications, is becoming a global problem. China and India are grappling with it. There are national anti-obesity campaigns under way in Ireland, Australia, and the United Kingdom, where the National Obesity Forum is focused on involving the media in food education and on improving the quality of school food. Today, 12.5 million American children are obese, an additional 13 million are overweight, and more and more of them are developing problems normally found only in adults—high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes, which can lead to heart attacks, strokes, blindness, and loss of limbs. If childhood obesity continues to increase, this young generation could be the first in American history to have shorter lives than their parents. To get the alliance off to a good start, I asked the Republican governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, to co-lead the effort with me because I wanted an inclusive, nonpartisan effort; because he had implemented a good child-health program in his state; and because he was a great example: he lost 110 pounds, got off his diabetes medicine, and ran his first marathon at age forty-nine. After Huckabee left office, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also has aggressively tackled the childhood obesity issue, became the Alliance co-leader.

Our plan called for involving industry, schools, health-care providers, and kids themselves in efforts to stop the nationwide increase in childhood obesity and to empower young people to make healthy lifestyle choices. It was a great idea but a huge, complex challenge. The American Heart Association has an extensive presence in communities and schools across America, invaluable expertise, and a national network of volunteers and supporters who give time and money, but we needed someone to organize and run this operation, someone willing to take on a big job without a big salary.

In stepped Bob Harrison. A graduate of Cornell University and Yale Law School and a Rhodes Scholar, Bob spent twenty-two years on Wall Street as an investment banker and lawyer. He became a partner at Goldman Sachs, and co-head of its Global Communications, Media, and Entertainment Group. In 2003, still a young man, he retired to pursue public service full-time. In 2004, he was involved in the presidential campaigns of General Wesley Clark and Senator John Kerry. The next year, he found his way to my foundation, where he led a task force that studied the feasibility of adding clean water and sanitation to our health and development efforts in Africa and Asia. In his spare time, he serves as chairman of the board of New York City’s Henry Street Settlement, a 114-year-old anti-poverty organization that provides shelters for the homeless and for battered women, home care to seniors, mental and physical health clinics, and youth and workforce development programs.

Bob took on his new start-up with enthusiasm. Operating out of a small room in my Harlem office, he developed a compelling presentation of the problem, complete with statistics and charts, and a clear strategy for tackling it. In just a year and a half, Bob has helped broker deals with the beverage and snack food industries to stop the sale of high-calorie beverages and snacks in schools. He has started the Healthy Schools Program, a partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to support the development of better nutrition, more physical activity, and good staff wellness programs, and to recognize schools that enhance their health practices. The program is already in place. It has reached more than 750,000 kids in about 1,000 schools in forty-four states, with a special emphasis on low-income student populations at higher risk of obesity. Over the next four years, we hope to help thirty thousand schools, or one in four schools across the country. Bob partnered with Nickelodeon, the channel most watched by young children, to start the “Let’s Just Play—Go Healthy Challenge,” an on-air, online, and grassroots movement that encourages kids to plan to make their lives, schools, and communities healthier. Nickelodeon