obesity

A new report shows Savannah pot-marked with areas rich in fast-food choices but lacking places to buy fruits and vegetables. The report analyzed block-by-block how far Savannahians are from stores selling healthy food, like produce, and how far they are from stores selling unhealthy food, like fast-food and most corner stores. Upper, middle and lower-income neighboorhoods all had pockets of poor access to healthy food. Catherine Martin of the city's Healthy Savannah initiative says, the goal is reduce the effects of obesity. "We want to have the healthy choice the easy choice so all of us can make better decisions as we grow and live and work and play in Savannah," Martin says. The report says, Savannah could promote healthy food availability by easing zoning ordinances, identifying tax breaks and expanding farmer's markets Lizann Roberts of Healthy Savannah says, people can't choose healthy foods if they don't have access to them. "Making the healthy choice the easy choice is building an infrastructure that helps produce good health," Roberts says. The report says, corner stores are a prime area to start improving access to healthy food. It says, getting them to sell produce along with alcohol and cigarettes could be as easy as a tax incentive.

A first-of-its-lind county-by-county look at national obesity rates finds a wide swath of Georgia with obesity rates exceeding 30%. The study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the first to give county-level snapshots of obesity across the country. It finds, the Southeast, Appalachia and tribal lands in the West have the nation's highest obesity rates. In Georgia, huge sections of East, Central and Southwest Georgia have obesity rates exceeding 30%. The mostly rural areas correspond with areas of high rates of diagnosed diabetes and high rates of poverty. The state's worst obesity rate is Terrell County's 34.9% percent. Metro Atlanta and the coast fare better. The lowest rate is Fulton County's 22.8% percent. The study suggests focusing diabetes prevention efforts on areas that need them most. To look up and compare your county's obesity rate to the rest of Georgia and the nation, click this link: http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/ddtstrs/ To see how obesity relates to poverty, click this link: http://www.poverty.uga.edu/maps/

As we finish up our week-long series on childhood obesity, today we're focusing on southeast Georgia's Bulloch County. That's where a new program seeks to bring the community together around by getting kids to lead healthier lifestyles.

As we continue with our series on the health of Georgia's children WACG’s Noel Brown takes us to the Medical College of Georgia. There researchers are studying the effects exercise has not only on children’s physical health but also on their minds and moods.

More than a third of children in Georgia are overweight or obese. Health care professionals have long focused on trying to prevent obesity in children. But that effort hasn't worked well enough, and children are getting sicker with obesity-related diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes. As GPB's Mary Ellen Cheatham reports, that's a problem because researchers say they have a lot to learn about how these typically adult illnesses affect children.

Childhood obesity is on the rise across the globe. With more than one in four children overweight in America, many doctors consider it the country’s number one pediatric health problem. The South has the highest concentration of overweight kids. GPB Radio is beginning a series this week looking at obesity research, programs that teach about proper eating and exercise and find out what is being done in Georgia to combat the growth of overweight children. Today we begin with the school lunch menu. Getting nutritious foods into the cafeteria has been the focus of many parents and educators. Educators, meanwhile, have a daunting task ahead of them as they decide what to serve. Reporter Carl Zornes visited a lunch food expo in Cobb County where vendors show off their newest food items.

Childhood obesity is a growing problem, with about one in three children being overweight or obese. Dr. William Kanto, of the Medical College of Georgia's pediatrics division, talks with GPB's Mary Ellen Cheatham about childhood obesity and how it is affecting health care for children.