Posted by admin | Posted in Prevention | Posted on 03-07-2010
The state government announced last week that were awarded grants totaling $ 85,000 dollars to the cities of Boston and Brockton to continue their fight against obesity. In a previous message – when Massachusetts received more than half a million dollars for the same purpose – commented that he thought it ironic that more money was needed to get people to eat less. Let me talk about how these cities proposing to invest the funds.
Part of the problem of obesity has to do with cost and access to healthy foods. In less privileged areas of the city, which concentrates the largest population densities and greater poverty, convenience stores are more common than the supermarkets. You should ask yourself, why is this a problem? Because in a supermarket you will find a variety of fruits, vegetables, meats and a selection of natural ingredients. Convenience stores will find, as the name implies, convenience. As regards edible, which are located crisp, canned goods, frozen foods, etc.. To say, not particularly healthy food.
But we know that obesity has to do with things other than food. It has to do, for example, lack of physical activity. Say you’d like to ride a bike or walk after dinner, but lives in a dangerous area with little lighting and streets in bad conditions for walking. Imagine that you want to have your son play ball or play outside with friends, but in your area there is a safe park.
Boston and Brockton propose to deal with a range of topics ranging from the increased availability of healthy food and drink in public places, to provide support to local businesses to offer healthy food and drink in the areas of greatest need. We also propose to fix streets and parks to encourage people to walk, bike and exercise more. These are just some examples.
Yes it is true that the secret can be as simple as eating a little less. It is also true that $ 85,000 dollars may seem a little money to achieve such ambitious goals such as making changes in regulation or municipal convince supermarkets to settle in poorer areas, but these proposals are creative, promising and, above all, necessary. As a society, we can not afford to allow our children to contract chronic disease that are easily preventable, diseases not only cause pain and suffering to those who suffer them, but also their families. For many years, experts have been saying that they do not solve the obesity problem in this country for the first time in our history we have a generation with lower life expectancy than the previous one.
And you? What changes would it take to protect the health of your family, neighbors and community in general?
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