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to take control
of their health
We are each responsible for our own health, and for the most part, only we can each take charge of our health.
Our socioeconomic environment here is a powerful cocktail of capitalism, competition and mass communication that all but forces bad habits on us. Dropaton brought awareness of healthful habits to our doorstep and at least for one year it opened the door for the message to come right in.
Many health campaigns drone in the background of our daily lives because they have essentially the same message that we’ve already heard and we will hear again. But we tend to pay more attention to timely news, and Dropaton delivered that news right on time.
Certainly, the project essentially gave us the same message; “eat less, exercise more” but it wouldn’t let us put it off, inviting us to try healthful habits for only 12 months with the hope that we would adopt them for life. It also broke that message down into 26 healthful habits from which virtually anybody could benefit.
Columbus County needed such a project because it resides in a nation with an obesity rate of crisis proportions and is actually in the front of the pack in that nation for such unhealthy factors as stroke, diabetes and heart disease.
As residents signed up by the thousands to be a part of Dropaton, it became clear that Columbus County cares about its health. People formed teams in their workplaces, schools and churches. They incorporated the healthful habits in their lives and encouraged their friends and coworkers to join in. The power of Dropaton was not in the organization, but in the individual who said “I deserve to live a healthier life.”
Dropaton only encouraged us to “Make today the first day of the best of our lives.” It was up to each of us to make that happen, and a great many of us in Columbus County did,