Our story began in 2004 with a pediatrician and a lawyer in British Columbia and their vision: children in Canada living healthy lifestyles. Increasing levels of overweight and obesity in children and youth in Canada served as a catalyst for action. They envisioned an environment that encouraged healthy lifestyles that kept children and youth on a healthy weight trajectory and resulted in physical, social and mental health benefits. They brought together Canadian experts concerned with the same issues, including physicians and researchers, and together they formed the Childhood Obesity Foundation (COF). We now know the focus needs to be on healthy lifestyle and not weight, so we’ve now become the Childhood Healthy Living Foundation (CHLF).
Our organization became a Canadian Registered Charity in 2006. For more than 15 years our team has been working hard to lead a societal shift toward healthy eating and active lifestyles that promote the physical and mental health of children and youth in Canada.
Together with our partners from across Canada, we have promoted, developed and delivered programs and advocated for policy change that supports healthy eating and active living in environments where children and youth live, learn and play. Our initiatives over the years have included Sip Smart, Screen Smart, Living Green, Healthy and Thrifty, Childhood Healthy Weights Intervention Initiative, Healthy Beginnings, Healthy Food and Beverage Sales in Municipal Recreation, a Canada-wide Coalition to stop marketing to children, a provincial coalition dedicated to decreasing sugary drink consumption in BC, Appetite to Play, the School Physical Activity and Physical Literacy program, Physical Literacy for Communities, Aim2Be and Generation Health. Our programs have reached thousands of Canadian children and youth and their families.
In 2023 we changed our name to the Childhood Healthy Living Foundation. Our name change better reflects the work we do every day to promote the health of Canadian children and youth. Our story continues!
The Childhood Healthy Living Foundation acknowledges that the CHLF office is situated on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Registered Charity: 851423434RR0001
Copyright ©2023 Childhood Healthy Living Foundation
