Melanie Kosaka noticed that the television shows her 5-year-old daughter watched featured reading and other educational skills but there was nothing on wellness or staying fit.

Around the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and prevention released a study showing an increase in childhood Obesity.

Another report released in September by the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, said some 9 million children older than 6 are obese.

The institute said that over the last 30 years the rate of childhood obesity has tripled among youngsters aged 6 to 11 and has doubled for those aged 2 to 5 and 12 to 19.

“In the United States, 16 percent of all children are considered overweight or obese,” Kosaka said. “In Hawaii, that number is nearly one out of every four children.”

Those figures led Kosaka, a Honolulu multimedia specialist, to develop Get Healthy Now, an educational campaign to encourage kids in kindergarten through third grade and their parents to lead healthier lives by making better choices about what they eat and staying active.

“If young children learn good health habits it will impact them for the rest of their lives,” said Kosaka, who began working on the program in 2001.

“If we want to make changes to health and wellness, we need to involve schools and parents,” she said.

Her goal is to expand the program to reach students through grade 12. She also hopes it will serve as a pilot program for the rest of the nation.

“The Hawaii model would be applicable everywhere,” Kosaka said, although resources would have to be localized.

Her program includes an interactive Web site; a series of television public service ads promoting fitness and good nutrition, including several with animated characters; and classroom instruction.

The Web site features sections for children, parents and teachers. The teachers section features lesson plans for nutrition and physical education developed by Dr. Charles Morgan, assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology & Leisure Science at the University of Hawaii.

The lesson plans are aimed at increasing physical activity levels in children, Morgan said.

“Physical activity doesn’t have to be the sports type,” he said. “It can be simple things such as carrying out trash, washing the family car or walking.”

The lesson plans meet standards of the state Department of Education, which has been receptive, Kosaka said. She made a presentation at the department’s recent health conference.

The Web site was launched on Dec. 1, and about 30 schools have signed on, Kosaka said. Registration will continue through Jan. 15.

Part of the education program includes issuing free pedometers to students in each involved classroom, allowing them to log their activity. Classes with 80 percent of students that meet their four-week activity goals will earn a “Step to a Party” from sponsors Subway Hawaii and Jamba Juice.

The students also can log on to the Web site and find out how many steps Gov. Linda Lingle, Lt. Gov. James “Duke” Aiona, Mayor-elect Mufi Hannemann and others take in a day.

The parents section of the Web site is “geared for busy working parents who want healthy lifestyles but don’t have the time,” Kosaka said.

It includes lists of 10 fun weekend activities, such as hiking, camping and swimming, and 10 healthy habits, including cutting back on sugar-laden soft drinks and juice drinks and dropping trans fats including those in oils used for cooking french fries.

The parents section also includes recipes and inspirational stories, including an interview with Hawaii’s Bryan Clay, Olympic decathlon silver medalist.

The interviews are produced by First Daughter Mediaworks, Kosaka’s company.

The kid section features games that emphasize fitness and nutrition, coloring pages and character cards that can be downloaded, and “Lani’s Corner,” where kids get answers to questions related to fitness and nutrition.

The Hawaii Medical Services Association is a major sponsor of the program.

Meanwhile, television networks are starting to respond to the increase in childhood obesity, with PBS’ “Boohbah,” Nickelodeon’s “LazyTown” and the Disney Channel’s “JoJo’s Circus” some examples of an industrywide search for such programming. Networks are eager for parents to see them as being part of the solution instead of just the problem.