Short descriptions of each story: easy-to-read, e-mailable pdfs of the actual newspaper pages, with all photos and charts.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
‘This Is a Public Health Emergency’ / One in four W.Va. 11-year-olds has high blood pressure, cholesterol, obesity
“We’re seeing younger and younger people with type 2 diabetes and weight problems that put them at high risk of diabetes,” said Nidia Henderson, wellness director of the West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Board. “The national obesity crisis is hitting West Virginia very hard.”
Thousands of W.Va. kids are headed for diabetes
Jenni, a rural obese teen with high blood pressure and cholesterol, gets a full medical screening at a university clinic, then goes back home to no services, no community physical acivity. As 18 percent of West Virginia kindergartners arrive at school obese, West Virginia children are sending up clear red flags of future diabetes and heart disease.
Children at risk identified, but who follows up?
Since 1998, West Virginia University’s CARDIAC program has identified thousands of West Virginia fifth-graders with very high blood pressure, risky cholesterol and obesity – early warning signs of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke – but no state agency has ever followed up on those children.
“We can beat this” / Health experts say W.Va. can lower its high disease numbers
West Virginia occupies a top slot on almost every awful health ranking: diabetes, heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and others. If the state’s top leaders will put health care on the front burner, that can change, an array of state leaders say.
“I want to tell people, this is possible.”/ You can prevent, control diabetes
Dannie Cunningham, 61, cut his soaring sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol down to normal range and dropped 56 pounds by working longterm with a diabetes counselor.
Posted in Diabetes, Individual stories, Resources, Uncategorized
Five days a week: Daily activity is affordable, Department of Education says
As the obesity epidemic mushrooms, a national movement grows to get kids moving five days a week by adding physical activities on days when kids don’t have physical education. If paraprofessionals lead activities, it doesn’t have to be expensive, fitness proponents say.
“It’s not the shape you are, it’s the shape you’re in” : Active kids do better academically
If you can get a child of any weight more fit, you stand a good chance of improving that child’s academic performance, Wood County researchers have proven in a West Virginia’s first serious research on the subject.
