Clark County Eat Right, Be Fit Committee and Clark County Health Department Complete New Version of "Roadmap to a Healthier
Thursday, October 11th, 2018 -- 11:43 AM
-The Clark County Eat Right, Be Fit Committee, in collaboration with the Clark County Health Department, recently completed a new version of their Roadmap to a Healthier You Booklet.I spoke with Rebecca Rosandick, Health Educator/Public Health Specialist with the Clark County Health Department and member of the Eat Right, Be Fit Group, and she provided some background about the booklet.
“The Roadmap to a Healthier You is actually version 2 of a booklet that was already existing. The original Roadmap booklet was developed and released about 5 years ago. What this booklet does is is goes through different health eating and physical activity resources in Clark County. It is also 100% specific to Clark County, which is nice. We all know that community resources can change over time, so we though now would be a good time to make updates and add information.”
She also explained how they went about putting this booklet together.
“Clark County’s Eat Right, Be Fit Committee received funding from the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health’s Population Health Improvement Grant. Over the course of about 3 months, our wonderful intern named Karen, and myself, completely revamped and reorganized the old version of the booklet. We spent hours formatting, gathering information and outreaching. The old booklet used to list healthy eating and physical activity options town-by-town. Instead of doing town-by-town, Karen and I chose to go resource by resource. We felt this made more sense and was less redundant.”
“For example, in the old booklet, Loyal was its own category and then, under the “Loyal” section, all of Loyal’s resources were listed. This wasn’t very convenient though if you lived in Greenwood and just wanted to know where the closest fitness centers were because you have to flip through each town to look for it. So, in the new booklet, “Fitness Centers” is its own section and then within in that section it lists the fitness center in each town.”
Rebecca explained what information is in this miniature guide.
“In its entirety, the booklet is 41 pages long. The first half of the booklet is the fruit and vegetables guide, so category by category it lists grocery and convenience stores that sell fresh vegetables, food stands and u-pick farms, food pantries and elderly nutrition programs. I should explain that by food stands we mean individual farms that sell their produce. If you’ve ever driven across Clark County and seen signs at the end of driveways advertising what produce that farms sells, this is what we’re referring too.”
“The second half of the booklet is the physical activity guide. It lists fitness centers, parks, walking trails and other activity options like ice skating rinks, where gentle yoga is held and golf courses.”
She also explained where people can find it if they’d like a copy.
“All of Clark County’s libraries were sent 10 copies of the booklet. Stacks were also given to Memorial Medical Center in Neillsville and to Ascension Our Lady of Victory Hospital in Stanley. They can also be found at the Clark County Health Department as well as the Aging and Disability Resource Center. We’re looking at sending them to local churches, such as UCC in Neillsville, UCC in Willard, St. Mary’s in Neillsville and St. Anthony’s in Loyal.”
“This booklet is also available on the Clark County Health Department’s website. Go to http://www.co.clark.wi.us/, select Health Department from the Departments drop down menu, in the left hand pane you will see a category that says “public health data/reports,” this is where a PDF version of the Roadmap booklet will be posted. Lastly, a downloadable version of the booklet was posted on the Clark County Health Department’s Facebook Page on September 19th. So, if you find the Clark County Health Department’s Facebook page, scroll down to the September 19th posting.”
Rebecca ended our interview by highlighting some of the items in the book.
“What is also really neat about this booklet is that it includes maps of each category. So, for instance, in the food pantry section, it shows a map of Clark County and then icons of where all the food pantries are located. It does the same for fitness centers, vegetable stands and so on. I should add that this booklet doesn’t include every facility, but it does a good job. Many of the Amish food stands were difficult to mapy. Karen and I did put an ad in the Clark County newspapers requesting vendor information, but didn’t receive any replies."
Again, if you would like a copy of this guide, you can head to the Clark County Health Department’s website or Facebook page.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.