Healthy Bodies
Our Healthy Bodies priority encompasses two aspects: preventing chronic disease, and improving healthcare outcomes. Obesity is one of the main drivers of chronic disease, and thus preventing obesity is one of our main opportunities to improve the health of South Carolinians. We are tracking provider availability, access to providers, success in the management of asthma, diabetes and hypertension, and volume of primary care preventable hospitalizations and ED visits in order to improve access to high quality primary care.
Scroll down to find information about these indicators, potential partners, and resources for improvement.
Help create environments for SC to be physically well today
Strategies
The South Carolina Action Plan to reduce obesity: SCaleDown lists a series of actions to increase healthy eating and active living in worksites, childcare, education, healthcare settings, and communities.
As recommended by DHEC, implement the National Diabetes Prevention Program to reduce the progression from pre-diabetes to diabetes.
Coalition
Get connected with the Coalitions that are working to decrease obesity and prevent chronic disease in our state:
SCaleDown: This coalition is leading the implementation of the SC Obesity Action Plan in different settings. Read the brief about the work of SCaleDown.
EatSmart MoveMore South Carolina: Join one of the dozens of ESMM coalitions in the state to improve access to healthy eating and active living in your area.
SC Medical Association Childhood Obesity Taskforce: Toolkit developed by physicians to prevent childhood obesity.
Resources
SC DHEC- Fitness Gram: Using FitnessGram software as a common platform to capture health-related fitness data across the state will allow South Carolina to collect body mass index (BMI) and fitness data on students. This data will support planning and implementation of evidence-based programs at the individual, local, school, district, and state levels.
7th Graders are Getting Healthier, Gaffney – Match program: In its pilot, 68% of obese students were able to reduce their body mass index. It currently exists in 17 schools. It is currently funded by the Fullerton Foundation.
Obesity Counseling by Dr. Lovelace:Beginning with a baby’s first two week child health check and continuing throughout our patient’s lives, we are proud to say that we take care of patients of all ages.
MUSC, Boeing Center for Children’s Wellness Program for Obesity: The Boeing Center for Children’s Wellness, in partnership with MUSC Employee Wellness and Sodexo, launched a Children’s Hospital Wellness Initiative that targets both employee and patient wellness.
Docs Adopt, Charleston and Greenville SC: Docs Adopt is a collaborative program with multiple partners that has been successful in changing unhealthy policies, environments and behaviors in schools, health care systems, physician practices, and communities.
Let’s Go: Let’s Go is a website with information and resources to eat smart, move more and track individual progress. Through its maps section -which works very similar to google maps- individuals can look for clinical services, farmers markets, parks, recreational facilities and trails by city.
Working Well: Working Well is a program for comprehensive worksite wellness. It has expanded to 100 worksites impacting more than 140,000 employees, and will continue doing so in 2015.