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Shape Up Houston Campaign Kickoffs

Posted byHoumanitarian

(Cindy George, Houston Chronicle)
For Loretta Jones, setbacks have foiled an otherwise airtight plan to get healthy.
Specifically, she wants to lose weight – without surgery – to overcome high blood pressure and diabetes. Jones, a UTHealth administrative services officer, was taking walking breaks with co-workers until a few weeks ago when she fell and scuffed her knees. She said her daughter recently reminded her she’s always been serious about her health, but not consistent.

So clad in sneakers Thursday, Jones decided to walk more than a half-mile from her building to the John P. McGovern Texas Medical Center Commons for Shape Up Houston’s kickoff rally.

The new initiative aims to address the local obesity epidemic, starting with the Medical Center’s 92,500 employees. Harris County has nearly 2 million adults who are overweight or obese and roughly 400,000 children who are too heavy.
(Read more at the Houston Chronicle)

OTHER HEADLINES:

OPINIONS ON THE NEWS:
Earth Day Reflections & Challenges

  • Sorry, Earth — An Earth Day Millennial Reflection
    (Alexandra Petri, Washington Post)
    “..Compared to prior generations, fewer millennials [are] working to clean up the environment — just 21 percent, compared with 33 percent of Boomers.
  • Earth Day 2012: Still Desperately Seeking Environmental Justice
    (Robert Bullard, PhD; OpedNews )
    “..[Since 1990] the Environmental Justice Movement has seeded a number of social movements, including health justice, reproductive justice, transportation equity, smart growth, regional equity, parks justice and green access, green jobs, food justice, and climate justice...”