Rural Obesity Focus Of Study At Purdue

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From Your Health Journal…..”This blog covers all areas of health, and reviews articles found on the net as a way of sharing valuable information, and hopefully drawing traffic to the sites that wrote the articles. JC Online is an excellent publication from Indiana. This is a heartwarming story how Purdue University is studying some rural areas to determine how to stamp out childhood obesity, from serving fresh fruit and vegetables, to playground equipment in an effort to help communities lead healthy lifestyles. As part of the five-year study, funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one county in each state within the range of this study will work with a coach to access needs and figure out what to change. I would recommend this article to everyone, as it also finishes with a nice Q & A with Angie Abbott, assistant director for Purdue Extension in the College of Health and Human Sciences.”

From the article…..

An ongoing study at Purdue University is part of a broad goal aimed at snubbing out childhood obesity.

Purdue Extension is part of the project led by Kansas State University to find the causes of obesity in rural communities in Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Adams and Henry counties are the focus in Indiana.

Angie Abbott, assistant director for Purdue Extension in the College of Health and Human Sciences, said the entire community will be studied to understand what resources are available to families and low-income preschoolers — such as access to fresh fruit and vegetables to playground equipment.

As part of the five-year study, funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one county in each state will work with a coach to access needs and figure out what to change. The project, “Communities Preventing Childhood Obesity,” ends in March 2016.

The J&C talked with Abbott.

Question: It was just announced that Indiana is ranked 41st in the United Health Foundation’s America’s Health Rankings. Does that tell you there is a lot of progress to be made to get Hoosiers healthy, or are we comfortable living in unhealthy ways?

Answer: We know locally and nationally that something needs to be done to curb childhood obesity. Therefore, the goal of this project is to provide a better understanding of what can be done on multiple levels (including environmental change) to impact habits (diet and physical activity) to result in an environment that is more supportive of a healthy weight and overall health.

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