When it comes to the battle of the obesity epidemic, Arizona is doing better than many states, but obesity rates here and across the country are still alarmingly high. New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that 29.5% of Arizona adults are obese, ranking our state 30th in the nation. This year’s Arizona obesity [...]
This week the Arizona Nutrition Network is launching a new public awareness campaign called “Put a Little Play Into Your Day” to increase physical activity throughout Arizona. The effort is an important step in addressing obesity, one of Arizona’s leading health priorities identified in the Arizona Health Improvement Plan. We know that physical [...]
Strokes can cause long-term health problems and death. The good news is that strokes can be prevented by understanding the risk factors (which are similar to heart disease) like high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, and tobacco. To find out more about your risk for a stroke, you can talk with your physician and [...]
Ventanilla de Salud (Health Windows) is a program that improves access to preventive health care, health education, and public health screening at Mexican consular offices throughout the US. There are 5 Ventanillas in AZ (Douglas, Nogales, Phoenix, Tucson, and Yuma). The Ventanillas are operated jointly by the Department of Health of Mexico (Secretaria de Salud [...]
The passage of the Farm Bill (the Agricultural Act of 2014) includes some changes and reforms to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or food stamps) and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program. In Arizona, SNAP benefits help put healthy food on the table for more than one million people each month, with more than half of the benefits going to [...]
The latest CDC obesity data published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association found a significant decline in obesity among kids aged 2 to 5. Obesity prevalence for this age group declined by 43% in the last 8 years (from 14% in 2004 to 8% in 2012. While the precise reasons for the [...]
Today we published Arizona’s first ever comprehensive State Health Assessment. The objective of the State Health Assessment is to give Arizona’s public health and health care systems a clear tool to help drive future decision-making and resource allocation as we collectively design and implement evidence-based interventions to improve health and wellness outcomes across Arizona. The [...]
There’s increasing evidence that whether a person will have a healthy weight as an adult is influenced by nutrition and physical activity in the first 5 years of life. In fact, a new study this week in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that overweight 5-year-olds are 4 x more likely to become obese [...]
Can you picture 6.4 trillion calories? That’s the number of fewer calories sold by 16 major food companies in the last 5 years. The companies include names like Campbell’s Soup and the Coca-Cola Company. All are part of the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation and have pledged to remove calories from their products as a public [...]
Every so often- you run into a resource guide that stands above the rest. I discovered one of those awhile back called the Guide to Community Preventive Services – and it’s a free resource to help you choose programs and policies to improve health and prevent disease in communities. The easy-to-read resource guide answers questions [...]
