By Lauren Baggett
Obesity is a serious and costly problem in Georgia, and the burden is greater in low-income, rural, and minority communities. Calhoun and Taliaferro are two rural counties in Georgia that, like most rural counties, experience high rates of poverty, chronic disease and obesity. In fact, around half of the people living in Calhoun and Taliaferro counties are obese.
But time and research have shown that reducing obesity requires more than encouraging communities to eat more vegetables and exercise more often.
“You can’t tell someone to walk more when there’s nowhere to walk. That’s a lost message,” said Courtney Still, program coordinator for Healthier Together Still presented an overview of the project, which just wrapped up its first year, at the State of the Public’s Health conference in Athens, Georgia, on October 17th.
Created through a partnership between University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, the College of Family and Consumer Science and the College of Public Health, the Healthier Together project tackles obesity from an environmental approach. The environment of a place — access to fresh food, access to safe places to exercise, social networks — dramatically impacts the health of its residents.
Extension staff in both counties gathered interested community members to form coalitions to create strategies to reduce and prevent obesity in their communities through education, promotion, and policy and environmental changes within the community. In the Healthier Together model, collaboration is key.
Coalitions include members representing diverse groups and organizations, including Family Connection, school systems, law enforcement, local businesses, and city and county government.
The coalitions had a hand in developing action plans for their communities, which included projects that would not only increase healthy eating and physical activity in the short term, but would also include environmental and policy changes that support health in the long term.
When the Healthier Together project began, the only place to buy food in Calhoun county was a convenience store. In July, the county installed its first community garden. Taliaferro held its first Bike Rodeo event, and the local school now has raised beds. In November, the coalitions met with a representative from Fresh Stop Markets, a CSA-type program designed to connect local farmers with communities lacking access to fresh produce.
Future projects will include a visit from an expert on building pedestrian-friendly infrastructures and a lesson on smart lunchrooms from Still herself. All of these individual steps, she says, will hopefully lay the path to behavior change.
“We’re trying to make the healthy choice, the easy choice,” said Still.
