Photo of 5 health professionals

For Health Professionals

We Can!® recognizes the important relationship that health professionals have with parents and families. Parents often turn to health professionals for accurate information and guidance regarding their child's health.

We Can! worked with two of its national partners, The American Academy of Pediatrics and The American Academy of Family Physicians, to develop The Physicians' Role in Preventing Childhood Overweight and Obesity pdf icon (93 KB) and We Can! Parent Tips: Healthy Families, Healthy Weight pdf icon (88 KB). These resources for physicians and other health professionals include information on how to enhance children's activity and nutrition.

In addition to these tip sheets, We Can! provides other materials, resources, and community–based opportunities that empower health professionals to help their patients' families. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with We Can! by reviewing the online We Can! Energize Our Families: Parent Program training. The Parent Program provides parents and caregivers with guidance on getting the entire family to eat right, move more and reduce screen time. The online training is great for health professionals and educators, community organizations, or anyone interested in working with parents and primary caregivers to give them the tools they need to help children maintain a healthy weight.

One great benefit of the online training is that you can view the modules at your leisure, and pause it with the click of a mouse if necessary.

Health Professionals can help educate parents and young patients on ways to improve nutrition, increase physical activity, and limit screen time. Health professionals often have the ability to identify at-risk children and youth whose parents or caregivers can most benefit from this information. We encourage you to:

Health Professionals can refer parents and caregivers to We Can! for additional information and community programs.

  • The We Can! Web site and toll-free number (1-866-35-WECAN) provide families with tips, resources, and ideas for maintaining a healthy weight. You can link directly to the We Can! Web site from your practice’s intranet or Web site.
  • Many We Can! community sites across the country offer evidence-based programs for youth and parents. There may be a local community-based program to which you can refer your patients.

Health Professionals can get involved with a local We Can! community site.

Health Professionals can foster partnerships between your professional memberships and We Can!

Start using We Can! resources and opportunities today and help make healthy living a reality for your patients!

Last Updated: June 11, 2012

Twitter iconTwitterExternal link Disclaimer         Facebook iconFacebookimage of external link icon         YouTube iconYouTubeimage of external link icon