Healthy People 2020

The Healthy People initiative examines the health status of Americans and establishes scientifically sound goals for improving the health of the country over a 10-year period. You can click on the logo above to find out more about this initiative.

For Healthy People 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services established 12 topic areas to consider, and 26 health indicators that can be monitored to determine if the health of the nation is improving:
One of these key topic areas is "Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity". Researchers identified four key indicators of the population's health within this topic area: physical activity, adult obesity, child and adolescent obesity, and vegetable intake.

The Healthy People researchers have gathered data from around the country that show how Americans are doing with regard to nutrition and physical activity. Visit the websites below to explore these "National Snapshots":
Nutrition and Weight Status (Links to an external site.)
Physical Activity (Links to an external site.)

Once you've examined these graphs, return here and answer the questions below for your week nine discussion:

1. What is the most interesting indicator of poor health that you see in these graphs? Explain why you find it interesting.

2. Which indicators are Americans doing better on than you would have expected?

3. The graphs for "Leisure time physical activity" and "Meeting guidelines for physical activity" show differences in physical activity levels between individuals with different levels of education. What do you think might be behind these differences?