What is the Southern Obesity Summit?
The Southern Obesity Summit (SOS) provides a platform for collaborative action to address obesity in the South, which has the highest obesity rates and disparities in the country. SOS is the largest regional obesity prevention event in the United States, drawing hundreds of participants from the 16 southern states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Together, these states join forces to fight obesity.
SOS focuses on improving systems to promote healthy people and resilient communities, while bringing together leadership from across the south to share, learn and develop strategies to address the obesity epidemic with a systems lens. Moreover, because obesity is a global epidemic driven by complex systems that span regional and national boundaries, SOS invites participants from diverse backgrounds to share insights and strategies for systems change.
SOS focuses on improving systems to promote healthy people and resilient communities, while bringing together leadership from across the south to share, learn and develop strategies to address the obesity epidemic with a systems lens. Moreover, because obesity is a global epidemic driven by complex systems that span regional and national boundaries, SOS invites participants from diverse backgrounds to share insights and strategies for systems change.
- Attendees include policymakers, leaders from community-based organizations, federal and state government officials, health care providers, non-profits, youth and members from national and state associations.
- Participants convene to publicize effective and emerging obesity prevention practices to inspire and energize grassroots efforts in the 16 Southern States.
- State-based teams will meet in a special session to provide opportunities for regional collaboration and collective impact. These sessions offer a venue for state-based learning communities for obesity prevention and ongoing coordinated action for systems change.
- The Summit offers networking opportunities, dynamic breakout sessions, workgroup meetings, and plenary sessions.
- Healthy Eating and Food System Drivers
- Active Living and Environmental Drivers
- Social Forces and Individual Psychology
- Game Changing Science and Medicine
- Local Ecological Systems
- Systems Approach to State and National Policy Change
Texas Health Institute: We are a non-profit, non-partisan public health institute. Since 1964, we have served as a trusted, leading voice on public health and healthcare issues in Texas and the nation. Our expertise, strategies, and nimble approach makes us an integral and essential partner in driving systems change efforts. We work across and within sectors to lead collaborative efforts and facilitate connections to foster systems that provide the opportunity for everyone to lead a healthy life.
As the public health institute in Texas we also a member of the National Network of Public Health Institutes which is a social, financial and information network, connecting more than 8,000 subject-matter experts with organizational partners across the nation. For additional information, please visit www.texashealthinstitute.org. |