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Norwalk
Health Department
Board of Health Actions
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April 10, 2007
3:45 PM
Library
Call to order at 8:05 AM
Present: Board of Health – Ken Lalime, RPH, John McNamara, MD, Edward Tracey,
MD and Martha Lemmon PE, (by telephone)
Staff – Tim Callahan, Director of Health, Gabrielle Grode, Health Promotion
Associate
Minutes of March 13 2007 meeting – A motion to approve was made by Mr. Lalime, seconded by Dr. Tracey, and approved unanimously.
Schedule a Public Hearing on the Proposed Fee Schedule
The hearing is set for April 27, 2006 at 7:00 PM in the Health Department Library
Progress Report on Obesity Project
Gabrielle Grode reported on progress made:
- Professional Development: organized 2 presentations from the Yale Rudd Center
for Food Policy and Obesity to nurses and preschool providers. We also connected
presentation attendees to the Norwalk Hospital Grand Rounds on childhood obesity
topics.
- Parent Education: Produced the Healthy Kids newspaper supplement which featured
articles and advertisements related to healthy lifestyles and participated in
multiple health fairs
- Media Coverage: Numerous articles appeared over last 6-9 months, featuring
the work of the Childhood Obesity Committee.
- Policy development: Surveyed after school providers on the healthy eating
and physical activity practices in their programs. Survey results showed that
providers are in various stages of implementing wellness policies. Therefore,
created a policy toolkit for after school providers to develop or improve their
practices. Individual meetings with providers to introduce the toolkit are in
progress
- BMI data analysis: In 2006, 30% of kindergarteners and 41% of sixth graders
were either at risk of overweight or overweight. These percentages have not
changed drastically over the past 3 years. Disparities in BMI by race/ethnicity
were found. Nearly one-third of African-American sixth graders are overweight,
compared to 18% of white 6th graders and 26% of Hispanic sixth graders. While
there are 3 times as many overweight white sixth graders as overweight white
kindergarteners and twice as many overweight black sixth graders as overweight
black kindergarteners, there is little difference in the percentage of overweight
Hispanic sixth graders and kindergarteners. Lastly, retrospectively analyzing
the records of sixth graders revealed that the percentage of at risk of overweight/overweight
students doubles between kindergarten and sixth grade. Larger changes are seen
in the overweight category.
- Projects in progress include:
- Planting the Seeds for Good Health - a partnership between the Health Department
and Stew Leonard's targeting nutrition/physical activity behavior change among
preschoolers
- Fit Kids Olympics - which is a physical activity challenge geared towards
youth in the community based after school programs, created with the assistance
of NEON, Inc. and a Norwalk High School community service group, B.R.O.W.N.
- Recess Rocks - a dance instructed program during winter recess to be piloted
in an elementary school
- Grant proposals- KRAFT, General Mills, Safe Routes to School
- Assessing BMI of 10th graders and presenting 2006 data to Board of Ed.
Adjourn at 9:15 AM
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