Changing the Shape of Our Lifestyle

Obesity Impacts Your Overall Health

By empowering leaders across the state to work together, Well-Ahead is working to improve the health of our residents at every stage of life by promoting healthy living. This coordinated approach to tackling obesity helps our residents have the best possible chance to build healthy habits and avoid chronic diseases.

Life in Louisiana is hard to beat. But, our lifestyle has a big impact on obesity in our communities. Obesity is common, serious and expensive—affecting overall health, healthcare costs and workforce productivity. Obesity can lead to health conditions that last a lifetime, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. By coming together in a multifaceted approach, we can enact change and make a real difference.

40% of all Louisiana residents have obesity, which can fill Tiger Stadium¹

18X

1.9M+

Louisiana residents have high blood pressure¹

47%

of Louisiana residents with heart disease have obesity¹

In medical expenses each year, obesity costs the U.S. about2

$147 billion


Making Healthy Living Easier

Healthy Changes to Combat Obesity

Healthy living can be challenging. Not only because of tempting choices, but also because many of our residents are faced with health disparities. Most residents know how to be healthy, but that’s not enough. Our residents should be surrounded by practical, readily available healthy options. This means making active lifestyles and good nutrition a part of our culture by creating environments that support healthy choices. 

That’s why Well-Ahead’s obesity efforts focus on policy, system and environmental strategies to make healthy living easily accessible for everyone. We focus on empowering leaders in child care, healthcare, school, worksite and community settings to make healthy changes in their environments to maintain a healthy weight. These changes include implementing evidence-based strategies like promoting the availability of healthy food options, creating opportunities for physically activity and increasing breastfeeding support.

Citations

1 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, (BRFSS) 2022.

2 CDC National Health Report Highlights, 2013. https://www.cdc.gov/healthreport/publications/compendium.pdf


Success Stories


Small changes can have a big impact in reducing the burden of obesity and moving Louisiana’s health forward.
Northeast Children’s Coalition Encourages Child Care Centers to Become WellSpots

Northeast Children’s Coalition Encourages Child Care Centers to Become WellSpots

The Children’s Coalition for Northeast Louisiana knows that investing early in the health and development of Louisiana’s children results in much better development later, and that’s one of the reasons they are proud to be a WellSpot. “The childhood obesity problem in Louisiana is critical,” said then-executive director of the Coalition Lynn Clark. “It falls …

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Louisiana Selected to be a Part of National Association of Chronic Disease Directors’ Employer Coverage Learning Collaborative

Louisiana Selected to be a Part of National Association of Chronic Disease Directors’ Employer Coverage Learning Collaborative

In October 2019, Louisiana was one of six states selected by the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD) to be a part of the National Diabetes Prevention Program (National DPP) Employer Coverage Learning Collaborative. This cohort pilot opportunity was made available to a limited number of employers that expressed interest in, and readiness to, …

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