Campbell corporate executive fights community obesity

The 10th grader curiously eyed the well-coiffed Campbell Soup Co. executive standing in her classroom.

"I'm an unhealthy person, and I want to lose weight," blurted India Harris, a 15-year-old at MetEast High School in Camden.

Not expecting the heartfelt declaration, Kim Fortunato nevertheless had an answer: "What can we do for you? We don't want to lose another generation of kids to obesity."

Harris smiled and nodded. Fortunato had won another heart and mind.

Poised and affable, Fortunato, 54, may be the only corporate executive in America with the title "director of childhood obesity and hunger."

Her one job is to combat these paradoxically twinned scourges of the poor. Campbell plans to spend $10 million in Camden over the next 10 years to halve the city's extraordinary rates of hunger and childhood obesity.

People in poverty often have little choice but to eat nutritionally disastrous foods that are cheap, highly processed, and larded with high-fructose corn syrup and salt. Families become fat and malnourished at the same time.

In America, 31 percent of girls and 32 percent of boys ages 3 to 18 are overweight or obese, according to the Rutgers University Center for State Health Policy.

In Camden, the home of Campbell Soup since 1869, overweight/obese numbers are 40 percent for girls, 39 percent for boys.

And nearly 25 percent of Camden households with children ages 3 to 18 report being food insecure - having too little food to eat, Rutgers figures show. Nationwide, about 15 percent of households are food insecure.

To help young people like India Harris, Fortunato and Campbell are working with five nonprofits:

• The Food Bank of South Jersey, to distribute food in Camden and help the organization teach nutrition and healthy cooking.
• The local YMCA, to implement programs that increase children's physical activity.
• The Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, to provide prenatal care and help with baby nutrition.
• The Camden Garden Club, to create community gardens and teach horticulture in schools.
• The Food Trust (of Philadelphia), to help Camden corner stores provide healthier food.

Campbell isn't the only company trying to improve the health of the poor.

"It's now standard practice for obesity and hunger to be part of corporate programs," said Dawn Henry, spokeswoman for the Association of Corporate Contributions Professionals, a nonprofit that teaches corporate executives how to coordinate their philanthropic activities.