ABSTRACT
Physicians can play a key role with strategic alliances in creating sustainable environmental and policy changes that are critical for the health and well-being of their patients and the community as a whole. Bringing organizations and community members together from a range of disciplines, sectors of society, and diverse backgrounds is necessary when striving to enhance healthy eating and active living in a community. Physicians also benefit from community-based partnerships working to change policy and environments to enhance opportunities for daily physical activity and healthy eating. They help extend the physician’s ability to advocate for the health of their patient population at the local, regional, and national level. Significant barriers to healthy lifestyles face residents in the Appalachian community of Charleston, West Virginia. Culturally fat-laden diets and sedentary living combined with low access to healthy foods and places to be active for many residents have resulted in pronounced obesity and poor health, exacerbated by high rates of poverty.
