Hard to believe that a week has gone by already since the “Conquering Tri-County’s Obesity Epidemic: Challenges, Changes, Choices” meeting, which I previewed in this column. A belated thank you to the Center for Community Health Partnerships for the invitation.
I also want to thank Carolyn Murray from Channel 2 for introducing me to Louis Yuhasz, founder of Louie’s Kids, who co-chaired the event and led a dynamic session in the morning highlighting some great health initiatives from around the state.
This week, The New York Times reported that obesity rates among children have fallen slightly in some cities. But it also noted: “Individual efforts like one-time exercise programs have rarely produced results. Researchers say that it will take a broad set of policies applied systematically to effectively reverse the trend, a conclusion underscored by an Institute of Medicine report released in May. ”
That’s exactly what last week’s meeting was about, working on a systematic approach to improve health overall in the tri-county. Everybody there was passionate about creating healthy communities and healthy futures for our children. As a relatively new mom, I really hope there will be safe routes for our son to walk or bike to school when the time comes, and I hope that the positive trend toward better school lunches continues too. There were lots of great ideas out of last week’s meeting; look for more updates in the coming weeks and months as plans start to take hold.