As a public official, Roy Baldwin got involved in a number of health initiatives.

On Tuesday, he focused on just one: helping reduce the number of overweight children.

"The problem with obesity in children is that sometimes the kids who need the most help are hard to reach," the former state legislator and a member of the Lighten Up Lancaster County Coalition said. "They are the ones spending too much time in front of the television and don't have any role models at home."

Lighten Up Lancaster County was established in 2007 by concerned individuals, organizations and employers to address the growing problem of obesity in Lancaster County through education, advocacy and support of health, exercise and nutrition programs.

To those ends, the coalition held the Eat Wise and Exercise Expo on Tuesday afternoon at the Lanco Field House in East Petersburg.

The expo, sponsored by the coalition's Education and School Action Team, was an informational and interactive event where people of all ages could share ideas about nutrition and physical activity.

"This type of event gives us an opportunity to not only improve the health of our community by providing information focusing on the importance of healthy eating and increased activity but also making it fun," Rosemary Search, Community Health and Wellness manager for the Lancaster General Wellness Center, said.

The expo featured health-related vendors who offered cooking demonstrations, zumba (dance/aerobic) classes and speakers from the field of wellness, providing participants with a better idea of the role they can play in helping their families respond to the health challenges they face.

"If you get kids involved in the purchase and preparation of the food, using recipes that have lots of colors in the vegetables and fruits, they will feel like they helped create the recipe and will eat it," chef Timothy Harris of the Pennsylvania Beef Council said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity in the United States has risen at an epidemic rate during the past 20 years. Nearly one of every three youths ages 2 to 19 is overweight or at risk of becoming overweight. In Pennsylvania, more than 17 percent of youths ages 10 to 12 are overweight. That's 3 percentage points above the national average.

The coalition encourages families to follow the "nrgBalance" (energy balance) program of the Pennsylvania Advocates for Nutrition and Activity, which focuses on five daily steps for healthy eating and active living:

• One hour of physical activity.

• Two or less hours of screen time.

• Three meals a day.

• Four or more glasses of water.

• Five or more servings of fruits and vegetables.

Part of the purpose of the expo was to help the coalition gather information, said Dr. Gladys Frye, a faculty member with Family and Community Medicine, which trains family practice resident doctors.

"The Education and School Action Team wanted to find out what the schools in the area are doing about increasing awareness and prevention and promoting healthy eating habits and physical activity," Frye said.

Six of the county's school districts — Donegal, Solanco, Hempfield, Lancaster, Garden Spot and Elanco — participated in the coalition's health program contest, which promotes healthy eating and/or physical activity. The schools' programs were evaluated based on creativity, impact, educational value and ability to motivate.

As part of the ceremony Tuesday, the coalition's Education and School Action Team recognized the work of Smith Middle School in the Solanco School District with its annual Wellness Education Summit Award. The school's program uses a Dance Dance Revolution system to increase physical activity, the ngrBalance program to reduce body-mass-index figures and programs to increase nutritional awareness and the purchase of fruits and vegetables, funded by a grant from the Highmark Foundation.

For all the coalition has done, however, Baldwin would like to see it do more.

"We want to recruit additional people to get involved in this effort," he said.

For more information, visit www.lightenuplancaster.org.

E-mail: ebetancourt@lnpnews.com