What factors affect healthy diet and exercise decisions?

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Published on
July 31, 2010

I'm honored to be a part of this year's fellows. I learned a lot during our week in Los Angeles and hope to apply that knowledge to my multimedia project. I will be looking at the obstacles that keep some in the lower-income communties of color in Tampa from developing healthy diet and exercise habits.

While good health isn't determined by just these two behaviors, a slew of diseases that have an impact on these communties, including diabetes and heart disease, are preventable through diet and exercise. More than often the obstacle isn't in getting out information (the message is already one that many people already know), it's addressing some of the social and envirommental factors that affect the everyday choices people make.

I'm going to look at what these factors are and what the local public health community is doing about them.

Like many of my other fellows, I know it will be a challenge balancing daily duties with this long-term project. But what research I've been able to do since the fellowship has shown me that this will be a worthwhile story that will be fascinating and fun to do. And more importantly, I think people really need to know how the structures of these communties affect our health - and everyone's pocketbook when it comes to health-related expenses.