Submitted by admin on Sat, 2006-11-11 08:00. ::
More likely than not, feeding that family healthier foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables for a week would prove to be more expensive than not-so-healthy foods such as TV dinners and potato chips.
Healthy Delta spokesman Rex Nelson agrees, and said he believes an unhealthy diet is one of the factors that keep people who live in poverty at a high risk for developing diabetes.
"Where you have high rates of poverty, you have high rates of diabetes, because it is less expensive to eat poorly than to eat well," said Nelson, who is the alternate Federal Co-Chair of Healthy Delta. "I can go to a fast food restaurant and keep my stomach full three times a day at a fraction of the cost I can get fresh fruits and fresh vegetables. So a lot of these instances are related directly to poverty."
States throughout the South with high rates of poverty - and consequently, diabetes - are working to educate their residents who are at high risk for the disease.
In Tennessee, Gov. Phil Bredesen Wednesday announced the appointment of five people to the Board of Trustees of the state's Center for Diabetes Prevention and Health Improvement. The center was formed through collaboration between the Tennessee General Assembly and the governor's office. Its purpose is to fight Type 2 - also known as weight-related or adult onset diabetes - in the state and improve the overall health of Tennesseans through Project Diabetes.
"Tennessee children are very much at risk for developing Type 2 diabetes, and it's not confined to an urban, rural or suburban area - it's across the board," Bredesen said in a release. "It's going to take some intense work with communities, schools and parents to develop meaningful long-term solutions to this problem."
Similarly, the goal of the Healthy Delta program - launched in September - is to educate people about diabetes. Healthy Delta is a regional program that covers 240 counties and parishes in eight states, from the coasts of Louisiana and Alabama to southern Illinois and western Kentucky. The program is an initiative of the Delta Regional Authority (DRA), a federal agency charged with improving the quality of life for people who live in the Delta region.
"Even though the DRA is basically an economic development agency, in large parts of the Delta we are never going to achieve true economic development until we concentrate on human development," Nelson said. "We have to have a healthy, educated workforce in order to expand the region."
The DRA board - which consists of the governors of the eight states that are part of the DRA - decided in 2005 to focus on health care and to use $1 million of its $12 million general budget for the Healthy Delta program.
The program offers a 24-hour call center with a toll-free number for people who think they might be at risk for Type II diabetes. Once a person contacts a specialist at Healthy Delta, he or she is referred to a nearby physician or clinic. A diabetes specialist from Healthy Delta then follows up after 30, 60, 90 and 120 days.
Diabetes is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, according to the American Diabetes Association. One-third of people who have diabetes don't know they have it, according to the ADA, which makes the need for long-term education important, Nelson said.
The Healthy Delta program and Tennessee's Project Diabetes will complement each other well, said Susan Cooper, the director of Tennessee's Center for Diabetes Prevention and Health Improvement.
"I think there's going to be a lot of synergy between their program and what's going on here in the state," said Cooper, who also is a registered nurse.
Nelson said he hopes Healthy Delta will continue for a period of years and expand its database of people. He also hopes to increase the overall awareness of diabetes symptoms and the need for people to seek screening and treatment.
"If caught early and treated, and (if) lifestyle changes are made, then people can live a normal life as if they have never had diabetes," he said. "But, if untreated, it can be a terrible disease."
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