Obesity & Food Access - Why it’s important for our region to focus on
Research suggests that obesity leads to greater risk of becoming severely ill from diseases such as COVID-19. How can we address health disparities that contribute to obesity to better protect our children from future public health crises?
As CDC states, obesity is a complex health issue resulting from a combination of causes and individual factors such as behavior and genetics. Behaviors can include physical activity, inactivity, dietary patterns, medication use, and other exposures. Additional contributing factors include the food and physical activity environment, education and skills, and food marketing and promotion.
Obesity is serious because it is associated with poorer mental health outcomes and reduced quality of life. Obesity is also associated with the leading causes of death in the United States and worldwide, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancer.
Lack of access to healthy foods is one of the contributing factors for obesity in both children and adults. Statistics in our S2AY counties indicate that there is a high percentage of families that do not have easy access to healthier food choices as well as a lack of education around nutrition.
Obesity Regional CHIP Workgroup
One of S2AY’s Regional Workgroups focus is Child and Adult Obesity and Food Access. In early 2020, S2AY members determined that it was important to concentrate on these areas because for each of the indicators, as a region, we fall short of the New York State Prevention Agenda target.
Moving forward utilizing RBA, the group will work toward improving the statistics around obesity through different programs and community outreach with the local health departments and our partners within this workgroup.
In addition to the Regional CHIP Workgroup, S2AY planned to facilitate a quarterly Public Health Educators Meeting, which would focus on unified messaging, social media planning, and serve as a platform to share ideas. S2AY and public health pivoted to meet the need of working on unified messaging around Covid-19 over the past 4 months, meeting weekly and more recently, bi-weekly.
Obesity & Food Access - Why it’s important for our region to focus on
Research suggests that obesity leads to greater risk of becoming severely ill from diseases such as COVID-19. How can we address health disparities that contribute to obesity to better protect our children from future public health crises?
As CDC states, obesity is a complex health issue resulting from a combination of causes and individual factors such as behavior and genetics. Behaviors can include physical activity, inactivity, dietary patterns, medication use, and other exposures. Additional contributing factors include the food and physical activity environment, education and skills, and food marketing and promotion.
Obesity is serious because it is associated with poorer mental health outcomes and reduced quality of life. Obesity is also associated with the leading causes of death in the United States and worldwide, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancer.
Lack of access to healthy foods is one of the contributing factors for obesity in both children and adults. Statistics in our S2AY counties indicate that there is a high percentage of families that do not have easy access to healthier food choices as well as a lack of education around nutrition.
Obesity Regional CHIP Workgroup
One of S2AY’s Regional Workgroups focus is Child and Adult Obesity and Food Access. In early 2020, S2AY members determined that it was important to concentrate on these areas because for each of the indicators, as a region, we fall short of the New York State Prevention Agenda target.
Moving forward utilizing RBA, the group will work toward improving the statistics around obesity through different programs and community outreach with the local health departments and our partners within this workgroup.
In addition to the Regional CHIP Workgroup, S2AY planned to facilitate a quarterly Public Health Educators Meeting, which would focus on unified messaging, social media planning, and serve as a platform to share ideas. S2AY and public health pivoted to meet the need of working on unified messaging around Covid-19 over the past 4 months, meeting weekly and more recently, bi-weekly.
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Source: https://map.feedingamerica.org/
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Source: NYS Prevention Agenda
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