Youth voices on the 6th Biennial Childhood Obesity Conference

Youth Radio reporters who attended the 6th Biennial Childhood Obesity Conference in June 2011 learned a lot from the conference sessions, but also hope the organizers can learn a few things about how to engage youth more authentically as partner advocates.Yohan Callan felt inspired by the opening remarks of Linda Rudolph, Deputy Director for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion for the California Department of Public Health."There's your workplace, equipped with a fully functional staircase, but most decide to take the elevator, preventing a quick workout."Jowana George attended a session on food marketing, where she learned how junk food companies use urban youth's role as trend setters to make money in low income neighborhoods. "It's crazy how they use people has brand marketers, and then use the image kids to attract and sell to other kids. This is not right!"Jowana also had some suggestions to make the conference more youth friendly next year. "We also felt pretty used! Keynote speakers were taking photos with us just to make them look better, and seem more youth-friendly in the eye of the public."