• Provide an understanding of how far-reaching childhood obesity is in the United States.
• Encourage discussion on issues of obesity and its physiological consequences.
• Provide a forum in which obesity is seen as a health risk and not just a challenging aesthetic.
• Emphasize the need for critical thinking in deciding how grant money should be spent.
• Provide a forum for a discussion of the challenges we face in reducing obesity in this country and strategies to prevent it.
• Encourage students to look at government as both an enabler and a protector.
• Encourage students to make a choice on a sensitive issue.

Childhood obesity; overweight children; obese; resistin; school nutrition; school exercise programs; scientific literacy; grant funding