For Healthy Communities, Knowledge Isn鈥檛 Enough
October 20, 2020
Healthy Outreach
海角社区 AgCenter extension agents are on the ground in every Louisiana parish inviting residents to decide for themselves how to best increase access to healthy food and physical activity where they live鈥攂ecause knowing what鈥檚 good for you isn鈥檛 enough. Through the university-led Healthy Communities initiative, residents, along with local organizations, businesses, and leadership, identify assets (such as a nice park) and obstacles (no crosswalks to the nice park) and work together to create change.
Healthy Communities, managed by 海角社区 AgCenter, is an umbrella for several federally funded programs, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention鈥檚 High Obesity Program, or HOP (in six Louisiana parishes), the Expanded Food Nutrition Education Program, or EFNEP (in 10 Louisiana parishes), Flavors of Health (in 21 Louisiana parishes), and the SNAP-Ed program (in 39 Louisiana parishes).
鈥� Elsa Hahne / 海角社区
鈥淚n some parishes in Louisiana, you might be surprised to learn that people do not have affordable access to healthy foods, such as fruit and vegetables. And if the healthy choice isn鈥檛 the easy choice, people will stay with their current behavior and not change.鈥�
Denise Holston, assistant professor in the 海角社区 School of Nutrition and Food Sciences