Chippewa Falls (WQOW)- The state is working on a plan to reduce obesity.
The plan, which is just a draft, was announced yesterday and sets goals for the state to reach by the year 2020.
"We have an epidemic of obesity here in the state of Wisconsin, as we do across the nation and we can't wait to address that," said Jody Fedie, Chippewa County Health Department.
On Wednesday, the State Department of Health Services announced a plan to prevent obesity in Wisconsin.
"This plan is a set of evidence based strategies that will help address overweight and obesity across different venues in Wisconsin," said Fedie.
The plan sets a number of strategies to fight obesity including nutrition and physical activity goals. The state hopes to reduce the percentage of adults who are obese from 27 to 24 percent and high school students from 23 to 21 percent.
"It's not just about personal responsibilities although there are things in the plan that do talk about what individuals and families can be doing, but the interesting thing is that our health is more affected about where we live and the environments that we interact with," added Fedie.
Efforts to reduce obesity are already under way in Chippewa County. Challenge Chippewa is a nutrition and physical activity action team which focuses on cutting down consumption of sweetened beverages.
"We've created a model sugar sweetened beverage policy for kids in early childhood education and childcare. We're currently working on a community awareness initiative, letting people know how they pour on the pounds when they drink sugary drinks," said Fedie.
Rhonda Brown, with Chippewa Health Improvement Partnership, is hopeful statewide efforts will help boost their own.
"To be able to have some technical assistance and maybe some additional funding to help our coalition promote our causes is going to be very helpful for us," said Rhonda Brown, Chippewa Health Improvement Partnership.
"We've gotten to this point over a generation or two here your know the last 30, 40 years, I've seen the explosion. So things have changed in our environment that have gotten us here and we can change our environment again to get us back," added Fedie.
