Vista clinic program reaches out to Latino families – California

“While the national obesity epidemic threatens the health and welfare of every community, nowhere is it felt more keenly than among Latinos, where heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes —- all of which have obesity as a risk factor —- account for nearly 60 percent of all Latino deaths.

In 2005, the California Department of Health Services found that nearly seven out of 10 California Latino adults were overweight or obese and that Latino teenagers are the most likely of any other ethnic group to be overweight or at risk of being overweight. (In the 2003 California Health Interview Survey, 37 percent of Latinos, 35 percent of African-Americans, 16 percent of Asian and 23 percent white adolescents were overweight or at risk of being overweight).”

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