Best Practices
and Opportunities |
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Develop
programs to promote good nutrition, encourage
healthier lifestyles and reduce obesity to 15% of NC population
by 2020. |
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Featured
Idea
After a health alarm Arkansas’ governor Mike Huckabee
launched a public crusade to fight obesity. He lost 105 pounds and is pushing
for innovations in the state including:
- Converting sick days to vacation days for healthy
people, replacing smoke
breaks with exercise breaks, and requiring restaurants to publish the caloric
and fat content of their food
- Taxing soft drinks at $.02 per can of soft
drinks generating an estimated $40
million a year used to fund the state match portion of their Medicaid program
- Providing financial incentives for state employees,
co-payments eliminated for
preventive services, $20 monthly reduction in insurance premiums for taking
part in voluntary health risk survey
- Challenging his staff to a contest using personal
pedometers to win the best parking spot for two weeks.
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Other
Promising Ideas
Additional solutions
implemented in other states are:
- Child care centers - Improve nutrition & physical
activity environments & practices
in child care centers.
- Physical education standards -
Require standards for physical education in elementary and middle
schools.
- Junk food tax - Levy fees on soft drinks and
snack foods, “junk
food tax” (17 States and DC).
- Reduction of premiums -
Reduce employees’ health insurance
premiums for filling out voluntary health survey (AR;
King County, WA).
- Voluntary Health Assessments/Surveys -
Offer monetary rewards to state employees taking health assessments
($50) and attaining
personal goals ($100) (SD).
- Reimbursement for Health Maintenance -
Reimburse state employees of up to $300 for purchase of health
maintenance items (SD).
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Citizen Input -
Visit
our Web
Log and tell us what you think can be done to help with
this growing problem.
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