Healthy cooking, healthy eating and exercise are a big part of San Diego County's Live Well San Diego education program. It's a 10-year plan to improve the health and safety of the county's more than 3 million residents and a forum was held Tuesday in National City to see how it’s working.
“If you talk to different sectors in the community for instance the Chula Vista Elementary school district and even our own patients we're seeing positive outcomes,” said Ana Melgoza of the San Ysidro Health Center. “We're seeing children that are losing weight. We're seeing children that were once borderline pre-diabetic actually avoiding that route."
Springtime and summer mean longer days to play and exercise outdoors and since the start of Live Well San Diego four years ago, parents in the South County are doing more to encourage their children to live a healthier lifestyle.
National City has the highest obesity rate in the county and Supervisor Greg Cox brought together government, community organizations and healthcare providers to share lessons learned. Melgoza says the groups use to compete against each other, but now it’s about building relationships.
“At the end of the day, we're all in this for the same reason,” Melgoza said. “We really want a healthy child, which creates a healthy family, which then creates a healthy community.”
County Park and Rec has a new brochure and map showing nearly a dozen places where you can enjoy the outdoors while getting some exercise.
“That's the message of Live Well. It’s to create these healthy relationships that create healthy families,” Melgoza said.
Live Well San Diego is designed to educate all county residents by also promoting depression screenings and blood pressure checks. The San Ysidro Health Center is a network of clinics serving 86,000 people annually
