Your mother may have always told you to eat your fruit and veggies. If so–consider yourself fortunate. According to new data from the CDC in the first ever State Indicator Report on Fruits and Veggies, more us need to dish up.
The CDC report provides information for each state on how many fruits and veggies people are eating and importantly, it highlights three key areas within communities and schools that can be improved to increase access, availability and affordability of fruits and veggies. According to the report, it shows that no state is meeting the national goals that were outlined in Healthy People 2010 (as an fyi, you can now comment on the Healthy People 2020 objectives to help frame our nation’s health priorities).
Fruits and veggies are essential to healthy living, preventing obesity and protecting us from chronic diseases and certain cancer–yet simply put, the CDC report found that many of us can’t eat the recommend amounts because we can’t fruits and veggies may not be easily accessible, available or affordable. What I like about this report, is that is not only states the problem–but offers ways to overcome it. And many of them, tap into the social marketing tool of advocacy.
For further inspiration to fuel ways to advocate for healthier behaviors in your community, check out CDC’s State Indicator Report on Fruits and Veggies as it provides fruit and vegetable consumption–as well as policy and environmental support–within each state. As an added resource, the CDC has also put together this report outlining recommended community strategies to address obesity.
At the CDC conference in August, we were reminded about the power and ability to leverage advocacy to meet social marketing objectives…looks like we have quite the opportunity here. Feel free to share what you and/or your community is doing to address this epidemic. We can continue spreading awareness about the obesity epidemic, or we can choose to do something about it.
flickr credit: mightmightmatz
]]>If you haven’t heard, the process of developing the nation’s health objectives for the next decade has started – and you and your readers could become part of the conversation. Healthy People 2020 is the next update of the objectives that have guided our country’s health promotion and disease prevention efforts for the past 25+ years.
As part of my work with ODPHP, I am hosting a series of guest blogs on how people envision the interactions of health communication, social marketing, and health information technology – including social media – in improving the Nation’s health in the next decade.. The first topic is Information Rx for Healthy People in 2020 by Joshua Seidman from the Center for Information Therapy.
Due to the limited resources to take HP 2020 to a greater level of participation, Lefebvre hopes to garner participation through the use of social media to help spread the word and generate the conversation. For more information and to see the latest post in the series contributed by Cynthia Solomon titled Personal Health Records for All, and add in your thoughts.
Lefebrve said he welcomes inquiries, post contributions, and cross-post opportunities. Lefebrve’s blog is where talking about health and inspiring people to get involved in national health promotion and disease prevention policy meet.
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