A Pittsburgh-based insurance company joined with a nonprofit advocating for child health to create a benefits program to prevent child obesity.

Highmark, Western Pennsylvania’s largest health insurer, aligned with Alliance for a Healthier Generation to develop a program to prevent, assess and treat childhood obesity through health insurance and other offerings, starting Jan. 1, 2011.

Exactly 39% of children in Pennsylvania are overweight, according to Highmark.

Children ages three to 18 with a BMI over the 85th percentile for their age are eligible to receive the benefits and will be automatically enrolled, according to Highmark.

The company said the benefit plan provides eligible children with a minimum of four follow-up visits with their primary care provider or other health care professional, and with four visits with a registered dietitian.

More than 500,000 children will have access to Highmark’s child obesity care, the company said.

“Without proper prevention and treatment of childhood obesity, our current generation could become the first in American history to live shorter lives than their parents,” Ginny Ehrlich, executive director for Alliance for a Healthier Generation, said in a statement.