On Wednesday, May 18, San Luis Obispo County is fortunate to sponsor a talk by Dr. Richard Jackson, a national expert on the design of healthy communities. It will be held at Cal Poly in the Spanos Theater from 3-5pm.Most of us know that we have an obesity epidemic in our country. Even in one of the “happiest places on earth”, recent data from the California Health Interview Survey found that only 37.3% of adults in SLO County were of normal weight – which is even less than the percentage of normal weight adults in the state. When addressing obesity and other chronic health conditions, many people focus on personal choices. Rarely do people look at the built environment as a causative factor. Yet increasingly, elected officials, public health professionals, architects,city and county planners, agricultural professionals, and transportation officials have come to realize that the way we design our communities can have serious implications for our health.
