Children walk to an exercise class while attending a program for overweight adolescents and children. (credit: John Moore/Getty Images)

CHICAGO (AP) – The American Medical Association says yearly instruction aimed at preventing obesity should be required for public schoolchildren and teens.

Support for such education is among new obesity-fighting policies that the nation’s largest doctors group adopted at its annual meeting Wednesday.

The AMA says it will support legislation that would require yearly classes in causes, consequences and prevention of obesity for grades 1 through 12.

Doctors will be encouraged to volunteer their time to help the effort.

Another new policy says the AMA supports the idea of taxing sugar-sweetened sodas as one way to help pay for obesity-fighting programs. But the group stopped short of a full-fledged endorsement. Some doctors think soda taxes would disproportionately hurt the poor and disadvantaged.

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