Greenlight Booklets
The booklets are the centerpiece of Greenlight. Specially designed age-specific booklets help parents
focus on the most important things they can do to keep their child growing healthy and strong.
Obesity prevention
starts in the first year
of life.
Greenlight helps families learn how to keep their children growing healthy and strong — starting in the very first year of life!
Our Mission
Greenlight seeks to prevent early childhood obesity by engaging families starting in the first months of a child’s life. Doctors use the Greenlight toolkit during regular check-ups and are trained to incorporate health communication skills, including principles of clear communication, cultural awareness, and shared goal setting.
The program takes advantage of the fact that families make many visits to the doctor when the child is young – there are more than 5 visits in the first year alone!
Our Approach: Promoting Clear Communication
To ensure clear communication between providers and families, principles of health literacy are used throughout the Greenlight intervention.
Verbal Communication
Evidence-based communication
strategies, like teachback and
goal-setting, are used to enhance
parent understanding.
strategies, like teachback and
goal-setting, are used to enhance
parent understanding.
Greenlight Toolkit Components
Greenlight helps parents focus on the key things they can do to keep their child growing healthy and strong. Greenlight strategies and tools also help providers communicate more effectively.
Why start Greenlight in the first year of life?
By the time they start kindergarten, 1 in 4 children in the US are already overweight or obese.
Why start Greenlight in the first year of life?
Young children who are overweight are more likely to become overweight teens and adults.
Why start Greenlight in the first year of life?
New studies show that babies who gain weight too fast, even in the first 3 months of their lives, are at higher risk of poor health when they become adults.
Why start Greenlight in the first year of life?
In the first year of life, babies are already learning the habits that they may keep their whole lives. Using the Greenlight toolkit, parents can do a lot to help their babies grow strong and be at a healthy weight.
The Greenlight Study
Greenlight is being evaluated as part of a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The Greenlight study has allowed the research team to look at feeding and activity-related parenting practices in the families who participated, as well as issues such as health literacy.
