Notes on A Community Health Model by Michelle Brown – Promote and Support Healthy Habits

• An uphill battle that needs to be addressed with education, support and accessibility by people who care!

• It is more convenient at this point in our society to put health in someone else's hands – doctor, nurse, ect.

• How can we turn the tide and give the community the tools to they need to take better measures in cultivating their health?

  
  

Our children need better guidance.

• Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years.

• The percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2012.

• Similarly, the percentage of adolescents aged 12–19 years who were obese increased from 5% to nearly 21% over the same period.1, 2

• In 2012, more than one third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese.

• Overweight and obesity are the result of “caloric imbalance”—too few calories expended for the amount of calories consumed—and are affected by various genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors.

• Obese children develop serious medical and psychosocial complications, and are at greatly increased risk of adult morbidity and mortality.

• The increasing prevalence and severity of obesity in children, together with its most serious complication, type 2 diabetes, raise the possibility of myocardial infarction becoming a pediatric disease.

• This public- health crisis demands increased funding for research into new dietary, physical activity, behavioral, environmental, and pharmacological approaches for prevention and treatment of obesity, and improved.

• Roles parents play and guidelines for parents and media must be implemented.

A SENIOR POPULATION IN NEED:

• There is a commanding need for trained professionals to intervene in perhaps one of the fastest growing health problems of the century, geriatric syndrome.

• According to the CDC, by 2030 the proportion of the US population aged 65+ will double to about 71 million senior adults.

• The CDC suggests that lifestyle disease places a profound health and economic burden on older adults due to associated long term illness, diminished quality of life and increased health care cost.

• Although the risk of disease and disability does increase with age, poor health is not an inevitability of aging. The promotion of a healthy lifestyle and encouragement toward early detection practices can create an economic advantage and make great gains against the health burden.

• The fraction that older Americans spend socializing such as visiting friends or attending social events declines to 10% at 75 years of age. :(

Support What is working

Improve Accessibility:

• Lower cost

• Make healthy habits more convenient

• Advertise programs

• Online Access

  
  

Create Accountability

• Buddy System

• Technology

• Highlight Community Members

  
  

Motivate Community

• Incentivize healthy behaviors

• Incentivize community members to step up (ACE)

• Health thermometer – ie: inches lost, workout hours accumulated

Encourage Participation

• Incentivize instructors with bartering - develop instructors from seed, so that those who benefit from the program turn around and teach. Possibly pay for their Personal Trainer or Nutrition certification??

• Media Coverage

• Reward Healthy behaviors

Enhance experience

• Implement a deeper cultural thread including dance, meditation, tai chi, nutrition.

Improve the System:

“Kintsukuroi” To repair with gold, the understanding that a piece is more beautiful for having been broken.

Form Partnerships:

Local businesses who represent all aspects of health:

Trader Joes, whole foods, google, eateries, farmers markets, fitness & wellness centers, churches...

- Hotline to health – catch a ride to a healthy way of living.

- Free Healthy meal plans & shopping lists

- Discounts for participants

Incentivize leadership:

Promote healthy behaviors from the ground up

Local businesses – promote healthy eateries

Local people – Provide free professional courses to those that excel at the system.

Mentorships

Create Motivational Tools

Punch Cards = Free Stuff

Online support Network & challenges

Friendly competitions: Fitness treasure hunts

Promote Accountability

Free Screenings

Free Body Composition testings

Buddy System

Buddy Challneges

Free Education & Resources

Grocery store tours

Label reading seminar

Healthy cooking demos

Gardening Tips and Materials (richmond compost)

Re Focus on Resilience

• Instead of appearance

• Self Awareness

• Create challenges – short and long term

• Promote local examples

A Model After Permaculture:

Design systems intended to be sustainable and self sufficient.

To work with the environment instead of against it.

To use what is existing and enliven it!

Permaculture: development sustainable architecture and self-maintained agricultural systems modeled from natural ecosystems. The word permaculture originally referred to "permanent agriculture" but was expanded to stand also for "permanent culture," as it was seen that social aspects were integral to a truly sustainable system.