Today, the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis announced the winners of the 2019 EU Health Award for cities, NGOs and schools on the theme of preventing and reducing obesity in children and young people.  The winner in each category was awarded a prize of €100,000 to further their work, as well as a certificate. Vytenis Andriukaitis, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said: “At European level we take action to reverse the rising trends in the proportion of the population who are overweight or obese, yet the figures remain worryingly high both for adults and for children and young people. For the first time in the history of the EU Health Award, we extended eligibility to schools and cities as well as to NGOs. This is something I feel strongly about – because good health needs to be supported at all levels, and getting children and young people off to a good start in life is something that should concern us all. From the bottom of my heart I want to thank all contestants for their efforts to help our children and young people.” The CITY category winner is Amsterdam. The ‘Amsterdam Healthy Weight Programme’aims to improve children’s physical activity, diet and sleep and ultimately help them achieve and maintain a healthy weight through community-supported interventions and policies throughout the city. The NGO category winner is the Society ‘Our Children’ Zabok from Croatia for its project ‘Healthy and Tasty’which organises fun and educational workshops to encourage healthy eating and decrease consumption of unhealthy foods. The SCHOOL category winner is IES Guadalquivir from Spain for its “Be Active @IES Guadalquivir” programme. The initiative’s main goal is to create a School Health Action Plan aimed at educating and supporting pupils to incorporate healthy living habits into their everyday lives. The EU Health Policy Platform is a collaborative initiative to ease communication between European Commission services and health stakeholders. It is aimed to be inclusive and to reflect the geographical and professional diversity of the participants. The EU Health Policy Platform is a collaborative initiative to ease communication between European Commission services and health stakeholders. Please find the speech of the Commissioner here.