We have a brand new updated website! Click here to check it out!

Month: December 2016

Ellis Co. restaurant and lodging inspections 12/18-12/24

Posted on

Kansas Department of AgricultureLast week’s inspection results from the Kansas Department of Agriculture:

Popt Gourmet Popcorn 1106 E. 27th, Hays- Dec. 22

First inspection after licensing inspection found no violations.

Al’s Chickenette 700 Vine, Hays- Dec. 22

Routine inspection found two violations.

  • In the back storage area there was a spray bottle that had a clear liquid present. The person in charge said that it was bleach water.
  • In the main kitchen there was a food grade plastic container in an ice bath next to the breading station. The chicken was at the temperature of 49 degrees Fahrenheit. The person in charge said it was pulled from the walk in cooler 30 minutes prior.

Kan. teen jailed on $100K bond, charged in fatal drug deal killing

Posted on

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say a 19-year-old man has been charged in a deadly shooting during a botched Wichita drug deal.

Andrew Bull made his first court appearance Thursday in Sedgwick County District Court. He is jailed on $100,000 bond on charges of first-degree murder and distribution of marijuana in the death of 23-year-old Charles Hawkins. Public defender Mark Rudy didn’t immediately return a phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Police say Hawkins was killed last week when he pulled out a gun and attempted to rob Bull during a drug deal. Police say Bull also was armed and shot Hawkins, who died after being taken to a hospital.

Sad day for staff at Kansas City Zoo

Posted on
photo courtesy KC Zoo

KANSAS CITY (AP) — A 33-year-old female hippopotamus has been euthanized at the Kansas City Zoo.

The Kansas City Star announced that the zoo announced the hippo’s death Thursday. The hippo, named Labor Day, had experienced a months-long “period of illness and decline in quality of life.”

A medical investigation is expected to take several weeks. Labor Day and another hippo, named Liberty, came to the Kansas City Zoo in 1995 when an area of the zoo featuring African animals opened.

Some Kansans’ health perceptions out of sync with reality

Posted on
Photo by America’s Health Rankings/United Health Foundation A recent report shows that fewer Kansans reported that their physical health was poor for at least two weeks of the past month than residents of Missouri. But that perception may have more to do with employment, poverty and education than with disease, according to a public health researcher.

By Meg Wingerter

While Kansans’ perceptions might make the state appear to be a picture of health, they are about as likely to develop health problems as the rest of the country.

The report found Kansas was near the middle on deaths from heart disease and cancer. The state also was close to average when it came to the number of residents with diabetes, which can cause other health problems such as blindness and kidney failure.

Across the border in Missouri, however, residents’ views of their health aligned more closely with their outcomes. The state ranked 41st in the country on residents’ reports of physical distress, cancer deaths and deaths from heart disease, and 39th on the diabetes rate.

So are Kansans overly optimistic about their health and Missourians stuck in despair? It isn’t that simple.

Poor health means different things to different people, said Shervin Assari, a research investigator in psychiatry and public health at the University of Michigan. In the case of Kansas and Missouri, different perceptions may have more to do with employment, poverty and education than with disease, he said.

“These factors are all heavily influencing health,” he said.

Comparing neighbors

Overall health ranking

  • Kansas: 27th
  • Missouri: 37th

Poor physical health in the previous month

  • Kansas: ninth, 10 percent of adults
  • Missouri: 41st, 13.9 percent of adults

Cancer deaths per 100,000 people

  • Kansas: 28th, 192.6
  • Missouri: 41st, 209.3

Heart disease deaths per 100,000 people

  • Kansas: 29th, 249.6
  • Missouri: 41st, 283.6

Diabetes rate

  • Kansas: 21st, 9.7 percent of adults
  • Missouri: 39th, 11.5 percent of adults

Source: America’s Health Rankings    

 

People who live in or are surrounded by poverty perceive their health as worse than more affluent people, even if they have similar medical conditions, Assari said. People with higher incomes and more education tend not to rate their health as poor until they are seriously ill, he said.

That doesn’t mean that poor health is all in low-income people’s heads, however — in the United States, they generally do have more chronic conditions than more affluent people, Assari said. They just may have a lower threshold for determining when those conditions affect their health.

Economic factors might explain why Kansans are feeling better. The state’s unemployment rate hovered between 4 percent and 4.3 percent in 2015, when researchers collected the data on health perceptions. Missouri started 2015 with a 5.4 percent unemployment rate, though it dropped to 4.4 percent over the course of the year.

Missourians also were more likely to be poor in 2015, and Kansans were more likely to have completed high school and earned a bachelor’s degree.

None of those factors alone has a massive effect on people’s health perceptions, but they seem to build on one another, Assari said. So a person with a high income and a college degree may see his health substantially differently than someone in poverty who never finished high school.

Perceptions of health also vary based on age, gender  and race, Assari said.

People who are older, male or white who say they are in poor health are at a high risk of death, he said, because they typically didn’t perceive their health as poor until they were extremely sick. But people who are younger, female or black or Hispanic tend to rate their health as poor earlier, when they experience conditions that aren’t life-threatening, like pain or depression, Assari said.

A young person with a medical condition might consider it to be a sign of poor health, but an elderly person with the same condition might shrug it off as part of aging, he said.

“It’s a comparison of expectations,” he said.

 Meg Wingerter is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team. You can reach her on Twitter @meganhartMC

Kansas teen charged with shooting death, cruelty to animals

Posted on
Ramon- photo Seward Co.

LIBERAL, Kan. (AP) — A southwest Kansas man is charged in a shooting that left one person dead and another wounded.

John Ramon, 19, Liberal, made his first court appearance Thursday on charges of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and cruelty to animals. He is jailed on $1 million bond.

Liberal police say a 24-year-old man was killed and a 29-year-old was hospitalized with serious injuries after the shooting on Tuesday. The names of the victims haven’t been released.

Ramon’s next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 9.

It’s not immediately clear if Ramon has an attorney. The Seward County prosecutor’s office didn’t immediately return a phone message from The Associated Press.

🎥 Cleaning extends the life of garden tools

Posted on

Dept. of Communications
Kansas State University

Good quality garden tools can last thirty or forty years, if you take care of them. Chuck Otte, an Agriculture and Natural Resources Agent with K-State Research and Extension, says a few minutes on a warm fall day is all it takes.

“To get the equipment cleaned up, all you need is a good steel brush, and then just go to work getting all the debris off. Once you get all the dirt and debris off, you’ll want to protect it from any rust during the year. All you need is a little bit of oil, and a paper towel. Squirt a little bit of oil on it, and wipe it down.”

Once the metal part of the tool is wiped down, it’s time to move on to the handle. Over time, wooden handles become rough and can leave splinters in your hand. A little work with fine grain sandpaper will do the trick.

“Once you’ve got it smoothed up, you’ll want to protect that wood from future weathering. It’s easily done. Just get a can of outdoor laquer or varnish. A spray can will work just fine. Spray it down, set it aside until it dries, and add a second coat. Then, when it’s dry, you can put it away, and you’re ready for next season with your piece of equipment.”

Power tools like weed trimmers, and lawn mowers need some attention, too. Your lawn mower is probably your single most expensive landscaping tool. Drain the oil and gas from the engine, clean off the top and the underside. Otte says, if you’d rather let a repair shop do it, fall or early winter couldn’t be better.

“You’re not worried about your grass out there continuing to grow. You don’t have to mow it. So, if it takes a couple to three weeks to get your lawn mower tuned up and ready to go, it’s not a problem. That way, you’re out mowing in the springtime, instead of being worried because your lawn mower is in the shop with everyone else’s, waiting to be worked on.”

So the next time you have a warm afternoon, take an hour or two to get your tools cleaned up for next year. It’s a great way to close out the growing season.

For more information, visit your local extension office, or visit KansasGreenYards.org.

SCHROCK: 2016: The Year in Higher Education

Posted on
John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.
John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.

For-profit career colleges suffered major setbacks in 2006 as many students dropped out with huge debts and no degree. Students entering college in 2008 had a 55 percent rate of graduating college from public universities but only 27.8 percent among for-profit 4-year schools.

For the more than 100,000 students enrolled in the main online campus of University of Phoenix, that rate was only 17 percent, according to reporters Gordon and Ybarra at the McClatchy Washington Bureau. The same reporters found “…that by 2014 nearly 1.2 million current and former University of Phoenix students had borrowed $35.5 billion in federal student loans, far more than any school in the nation, and that 45 percent of the students who’d enrolled in its classes five years earlier had defaulted on their loans.”

According to a Boston University study, students at for-profits make up nearly half of U.S. student loan defaults but only constitute 12% of college students. While there is a cap on for-profit universities getting more than 90 percent of their revenue from government funds, an examination of the top 15 found that they are getting 86 percent of their revenue from taxpayer dollars. They target and get 37 percent of post-GI Bill dollars. Many for-profit schools spend big money for CEO salaries and marketing but little on “faculty” salaries.

Because they may inflate their job placement rates, the U.S. Department of Education has shut off access to federal student-aid. The collapse of the Corinthian system left huge numbers of students with loans and no degrees, a situation that resulted in a huge taxpayer bailout as well. The dominoes continued to fall. ITT failed in September. The U.S.D.E. has denied funds to Globe University and Minnesota School of Business. Career Education Corporation has spent $10 million to settle claims.

In a 10-3 decision in June, the federal National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity voted to shut down the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools for failing to provide oversight of such schools. This will limit access to federal student aid for over 800,000 students and continue the decline of for-profit mostly-online colleges. Unfortunately, some of the same quality problems exist for public universities that have adopted online programs; they can hide their lower-performance online course data within their larger face-to-face operations.

Meanwhile, U.S. public higher education faces a reduction in the number of high school graduates and further cuts in state funding. Many universities are heavily marketing to out-of-state students who pay higher tuition. And there is a growing reliance on foreign students. If all of our Chinese students were lost, the United States would lose a college student population equal to all of the students in all Kansas public universities times three!

Across the United States, foreign students (temporary visa holders) now make up 52 percent of engineering doctorates, 50 percent of math and computer doctorates, 36 percent of physical science and earth science doctorates, and 26 percent of biology doctorates. With living standards improving overseas, an increasing number of these new experts are going back home.

Meanwhile, one-third of U.S. millennials are now living with their parents at home. For the first time, the cohort of post-graduate-age students has a lower percentage of college graduates than the prior generation. And for the first time in recorded history, the U.S. newborn generation will have one month less life expectancy!

There has been a massive increase in college credit given for Kansas high school course work under the dual-credit or concurrent enrollment system originally designed for a few exceptional students. Beginning the fall semester of 2017, much of this will be curtailed due to the Higher Learning Commission’s requirement that teachers of college credit courses have a masters degree and at least 18 masters level credit hours in the topic they teach.

Facing a Kansas teacher shortage, some Kansas universities are providing instructors for high school dual credit courses. As college instructors of college courses, they do not have to have a secondary teaching credential. But if there are students in that class that are taking the course just for high school credit, that college instructor lacks a license. Unfortunately, there is no inspector from KBOR or KSDE; no badge and no enforcement of licensure requirements.

But there will be concealed carry of guns on campuses this upcoming July 1, 2017. Substantial majorities of faculty and students at Kansas public universities disagree with the law—but they are four years too late in their opposition.

Kansas higher education is also waiting for the Kansas Supreme Court decision on adequate funding for K-12 schools. With a court decision likely to require $350 million or more for K-12 schools, Kansas will be hard pressed to find that much money. Anticipating further cutbacks, several Kansas universities have already frozen positions and are not filling vacancies.

Tuition increases were formerly limited to no more than 2 percent above inflation. Last spring, the Legislature removed that cap. Will our lawmakers balance the state budget on the back of the next generation of college students?

George M. “Mike” Ferguson

Posted on
George M. "Mike" Ferguson
George M. “Mike” Ferguson

George M. “Mike” Ferguson, age 66, of Hays, passed away Tuesday, December 27, 2016, in Hays. He was born February 20, 1950, at the Great Lakes Naval Air Station in Great Lakes, IL to Ormand Gates and Bonnie Jean (Cook) Ferguson.

Mike was a talented musician; he played several instruments and sang with various area bands. He taught music and was very active with the Hays Public Library, having served several years as a board member.

He is survived by his longtime companion and friend, Sandy Shupe of Hays and two sisters, Patricia Ferguson (Norman Strahm) of Glenview, Illinois, Valerie (Bruce) Ewart of Broomfield, Colorado, nieces Yasmin Pave, Leila Pacifico, Rima Bencal and Katie Ewart, nephew Kody Ewart, 10 great-nephews, 4 great-nieces, and one great-great nephew.

He was preceded in death by his parents.

A Celebration of Life service will be held at 11 a.m. Monday, January 2, 2017, with family and friends present from 10:30 a.m. until service time, all at Brock’s-Keithley Funeral Chapel and Crematory, 2509 Vine, Hays, KS 67601.

Memorial contributions are suggested to the Hays Public Library.

Condolences may be left by guestbook at www.keithleyfuneralchapels.com or emailed to [email protected].

Police ask for help to identify Kansas armed robbery suspect, vehicle

Posted on

Video surveillance shows the suspect and vehicle- courtesy Wichita Police

SEDGWICK COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Sedgwick County are investigating an armed robbery and asking for help to identify suspects and the vehicle.

On the morning of November 16, the Speedy Cash, at 3133 East Douglas, was robbed, according to a social media report.

Two unknown suspects made entry through the roof and confronted two employees at gunpoint.

The suspects took cash and then fled the business.

The vehicle is a white GMC Savannah cargo van. It may have a temporary tag. One of the windows on the passenger side was broken out and covered with plastic. There appears to be an area on the hood on of the vehicle where paint is missing.

There is additional damage and paint missing on the rear door of the van as well as damage to the driver’s side door.

If you see this vehicle, please call 911.

For any additional information on this case, you can call WPD Robbery section at (316) 268-4496 or Crime Stoppers at (316) 267-2111.

Two people arrested after high-speed chase in Ellis County Tuesday morning

Posted on

KHPBy GARRETT SAGER
Hays Post

Law enforcement authorities in Ellis County were involved in an early morning high speed chase on Interstate 70 Tue., Dec.27, with speeds exceeding 100 mph.

According to Kansas Highway Patrol Troop D Technical Trooper Tod Hileman, two suspects wanted for kidnapping and armed robbery in Kansas City, Mo., were spotted  around 7:51 a.m. Tuesday as a trooper ran the tags of a westbound 2004 Ford vehicle at mile marker 160 just east of Hays.

The Ford vehicle was reported as stolen. The trooper continued to follow the suspects as they took Exit 159 into the Hays city limits.

The suspects continued north and proceeded to turn into a convenience store where another trooper arrived for assistance.

Once the assisting trooper flashed his vehicle lights, the suspects began to flee, driving north briefly, then turning left and heading into the Wendy’s parking lot. Troopers began chasing the vehicle which jumped the curb, landed back on Vine Street and then headed west on I-70.

Speeds began to exceed 100 mph as the pursuit continued westbound on I-70.

The Ellis County Sheriff’s office was able to deploy road spikes at Yocemento, mile marker 153, where they successfully took out the tires of the fleeing vehicle.

The suspects continued west for three more miles before the fleeing vehicle left the road, entered the ditch, and crashed.

Both suspects attempted to run from the stolen vehicle, but authorities were able to apprehend the man and the woman and place them under arrest.

Jonathan Roberts, 31, and Michelle Trimble, 37, were arrested on charges of possession of methamphetamines, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of stolen property, and felony eluding law enforcement.

Roberts and Trimble continue to be held in the Ellis County Jail until they face their charges in Ellis County before being sent back to Missouri.

Battling the growing obesity epidemic in Kansas

Posted on

By AMIE JUST

Brandon Johannes knew he was dying.

As Johannes and his brothers toured Alcatraz in 2011, his view of The Rock was slightly different than planned.

“I can tell you where every bench was on Alcatraz,” Johannes said, “because that was the tour of Alcatraz for me.”

After a few minutes of walking, Johannes, then 31, needed a place to sit and rest. Shortness of breath and back strain made daily routines such as standing and walking incredibly difficult.

At 6-foot-1 and 500 pounds, he was nearly three-times the size of the average man his height. Johannes’ body mass index was 66. On most BMI charts, obesity starts at 30. Johannes’ belt was more than 5 feet tall — longer than some of his friends were tall.

While walking throughout San Francisco, drenched in sweat, Johannes would fall blocks behind his physically fit brothers.

Johannes’ brothers, Aaron and Matt, are both taller than Brandon. Aaron, is 6-foot-3 and weighed approximately 175. Matt, the tallest of the three, is 6-foot-7 and weighed approximately 260.

For 14 years, Johannes had deflected comments from his family and friends telling him that he needed to lose weight. His response was always the same: “I’m not ready yet.”

Alone on an Alcatraz bench, with his brothers out of sight, Johannes realized it was time for a change. He couldn’t ignore his obesity anymore; he needed weight-loss surgery.

Johannes, a Leavenworth resident, was far from alone.

According to the national 2015 State of Obesity report, obesity rates increased in two states: Kentucky and Kansas. With Kansas’ latest increase, the state now ranks seventh nation in highest obesity percentage at 34.2 percent.

Over the past 20 years, the percentage of obese Kansans has increased 153 percent. In 1995, Kansas’ obesity percentage was 13½ percent, ranking 36th nationwide.

A combination of issues has contributed to Kansas’ precipitous increase in obesity, but experts are unable to pinpoint a direct cause.

“It would be great if we could wave a magic wand and identify and pinpoint the exact issue for obesity rising in Kansas,” said Kate Hoppe, the Physical Activity and Nutrition Manager for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s Bureau of Health Promotion. “The fact of the matter is that obesity is a pretty complex issue. Body weight is the result of many factors, including behavior, metabolism and genetics.”

During the past eight years, one of First Lady Michelle Obama’s cornerstone initiatives has targeted healthy eating habits. Her Let’s Move! campaign promotes raising a healthier generation of children.

But that program, and others like it, is for kids, not adults.

In 2015, roughly one in five adults 18 years and older ate vegetables less than one time per day, according to the Kansas Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. That number was even higher for fruit, as about two in five adults for that same age group ate fruit less than once daily. Those numbers aren’t significantly different than 2013.

There’s also a difference between not eating healthy foods and being addicted to eating.

In the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, food addiction, otherwise known as “Binge Eating Disorder,” is now recognized as its own category of eating disorders. It joints other disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa.

Food addiction

Sometimes twice a day, Johannes would venture to McDonald’s. For breakfast, he’d have the Deluxe Big Breakfast with scrambled eggs, sausage and pancakes. He’d also get two bacon, egg and cheese biscuits with hash browns, as well as several breakfast burritos. For lunch or dinner, Johannes would order two double cheeseburgers to eat on the drive home as an appetizer. Upon arrival, he’d eat a double quarter pounder meal with supersized large fries as his entree.

When he’d have pizza for dinner, it wouldn’t be a slice or two. He’d eat an entire large Meat Lovers pizza with stuffed crust from Pizza Hut in a single sitting.

According to Pizza Hut’s menu, that’s 3,840 calories.

“I can’t think of any place that I used to go where I didn’t usually double up,” Johannes said. “I was eating upwards of 2,500 to 3,000 calories a meal.”

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, on average men should consume about 2,500 calories daily.

Johannes had a problem. He was addicted to food.

“One of the things about this particular addiction is that you can live without alcohol. You can live without hard drugs. You can’t live without food,” Johannes said. “You don’t get days where you’re sober. You’ve gotta stick with your drug every day until the day you die.”

While Johannes was eating high quantities of food well above the recommended amount of trans and saturated fats, his cholesterol was through the roof at 238. Any higher than that is considered extremely dangerous. He’d been on medicine to help regulate it for over a year. In addition to medication, Johannes preemptively took an additional medication for 13 months in hopes of staving off diabetes.

A week after Johannes scheduled his bariatric surgery, his doctor called. He had officially crossed the diabetic line.

Johannes’s health problems didn’t stop there. He’d been diagnosed with high blood pressure, gout and enlarged organs.

“There was a point in time where my doctor was worried that my pancreas wasn’t even functioning,” he said.

To this day, he has weak knees and ankles because of the weight he carried for the better part of 14 years.

All told, Johannes was taking at least six different medications for his various health conditions related to obesity, plus at least two more for unrelated medical conditions.

“I had a lot of different side effects and it was only getting worse the older I got,” he said. “I don’t know if I would have made it to my 40s or 50s and if I had, oh my goodness, the kinds of stuff I would have been on then.”

In the state of Kansas, nearly 10 percent of adults have been diagnosed with diabetes and 31.6 percent of adults have been diagnosed with hypertension. Both of those figures are approximately median figures nationwide.

To compare, Colorado has the lowest adult diabetes rate in the union at 6.8 percent, while Mississippi bolsters a rate of 14.7 percent to lead the nation. Utah has the lowest adult hypertension rate at 23.6 percent. West Virginia leads the nation in hypertension rates at 42.7 percent.

Currently, approximately 558,000 adult Kansans have hypertension and 239,000 adult Kansans have diabetes. If the rates continue to increase at the current pace, over 700,000 adult Kansans will have hypertension and 367,000 adult Kansans will have diabetes in 2030.

The entire population of Johnson county in 2012 was roughly 559,000 people.

According to the 2012 “F as in Fat” report, there were over 176,000 heart disease cases in the state of Kansas in 2010. If the projection numbers remain on course, by 2030, more than 769,000 adult Kansans will be diagnosed with a heart disease. That would be the entire population of Kansas City, Kan., Wichita, Topeka and Manhattan combined.

“Quite a lot of health professionals are concerned about obesity rates because they feel like it’s going to bankrupt the health care system,” said Marty Glenn, a registered and licensed dietician and lecturer at the University of Kansas. “ Because of the cost involved for treating all these diseases, especially diabetes because it affects a lot of different parts of the body. You have to go see a specialist for every body part almost.”

State of Obesity report

The main unit of measurement for the annual State of Obesity report is body mass index. To calculate BMI, all it takes is knowing someone’s height and weight. But it’s not a perfect measurement.

Glenn, and many medical professionals, aren’t keen on using BMI as a measure for obesity.

“It’s very, very practical, but it’s just flawed,” Glenn said. “It’s too general. I am not a huge fan of the BMIs at all. I think they over estimate how many people truly are unhealthy.”

Some people, such as athletes, are more likely to have higher BMIs because muscle tissue is dense and heavier than fat tissue.

Glenn said muscle tissue is like a sponge that’s been soaked in water, whereas fat tissue is a dry sponge.

“It’s still the same size, but the weight because of the water content is much higher,” he said. “You get somebody, like (Cleveland Cavaliers) LeBron James, and about any player in the NFL and they’re going to be obese or at least overweight.”

It’s true. James’s calculated body mass index is 27.4, indicating someone who’s overweight. But his body composition was 6.7 percent body fat in 2003. According to BMI, New England Patriot quarterback Tom Brady is overweight, while Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski and Green Bay running back Eddie Lacy are obese.

Glenn wishes that there was a more practical way to assess whether or not someone’s weight was unhealthily overweight or obese or healthily overweight or obese.

Even though Glenn has qualms with the main measurement used for the study, he doesn’t dismiss that obesity is truly a problem in Kansas.

“They’re moving up the ranks that’s for sure,” Glenn said. “Unfortunately those are rankings you don’t want to slowly move up, but they have been.”

Kansas solutions

Back in 2006, then-Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius reinstated the Kansas Governor’s Council on Fitness that was abolished in 1995. Its mission is “to encourage physical activity, healthy diets and tobacco use prevention by sharing information with Kansans and partnering with businesses, schools and individuals to promote healthy lifestyles.

The Governor’s Council on Fitness is still active and has 18 current members including the Secretary of Health and Environment, the Chief Operating Officer of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas Foundation, professors at Fort Hays State and the University of Kansas School of Medicine, among others.

One of their main goal is working on the Healthy Kansans 2020 plan by focusing on 12 different areas related to health by building “on the comprehensive, nationwide health promotion and disease prevention agenda” and “to establish state-specific measures and initiatives.”

Those 12 areas include: access to health services, chronic disease, disability and health, environmental health, immunization and infectious disease, injury prevention, lifestyle behaviors, maternal, infant and child health, mental health, oral health, social determinants of health, and violence prevention.

But this wasn’t just a Kansas initiative. The Healthy Kansans 2020 plan derives from the national Healthy People 2020 plan.

The Kansas-oriented plan has two objectives related to obesity. One is to reduce the proportion of Kansans who are obese to 30.5 percent. The other is to reduce to the proportion of Kansas adolescents aged 12 to 19 who are obese to 16.1 percent. The current rate of adolescent obesity, according to the Center for Disease Control, is 16.3 percent. The plan doesn’t outline how those objectives are going to be achieved, other than by “promoting access to healthy foods and support policies that promote healthy food choices.”

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment is currently supporting other initiatives as well, according to Hoppe, such as, increasing access to local foods by increasing the number of farmer’s markets and farm to institution programs, as well as, increasing physical activity among all populations by implementing pedestrian and bicyclist plans to further implement sidewalks and bicycle lanes.

“Another thing that I think complements these efforts too that’s really important is that we’re supporting evidence-based lifestyle change programs across the state,” Hoppe said. “What those programs do is give people with chronic conditions the tools to make and sustain lifestyle changes that will help them to be healthier.”

A real-world example Hoppe mentioned is the incorporation of a new grocery store to Allen County.

Back in May 2015, it was announced that a grocery store company submitted a letter of intent to build in Iola. The press release announcing the plans said Thrive Allen County– a non-profit devoted to healthy living– had been trying to get a new supermarket built in the area since January 2013. According to Hoppe, the purchase of the land was conditioned on adopted design standards to make the area walkable and bikeable. The official groundbreaking of the grocery store was on Oct. 27, 2016.

In addition, Hoppe also outlined a new wayfinding plan in Sedgwick County. The plan provides signage for pedestrians and cyclists to healthy food retailers and health clinics.

“I think that this work highlights the importance of these strategies that we’re working on and our communities are working on for not only increasing physical activity and healthy eating but also ensuring that underserved and high-risk populations have physical access to needed health care services that can assist them with managing their obesity or other chronic conditions,” Hoppe said.

The first meeting in regards to the Wichita Bicycle Wayfinding System occurred in early June 2015. The most recent meeting, according to the wichita.gov website occurred in March 2016, but no minutes were posted. According to the October 2015 meeting minutes, the wayfinding system master plan was supposed to be finalized in February 2016, The final system plan was dated Sept. 13, 2016. That doesn’t include a final date for when the nearly additional side paths, bicycle lanes and shared use paths will be completed. The master plan says 770 miles of bicycle facilities are recommended. The wichita.gov website says the city currently maintains more than 100 miles of bicycle facilities.

But these programs aren’t quick fixes. Most, if not all of them, require years of planning, years to execute and additional years to see concrete results.

“We’re confident we know that based on the evidence that these strategies do make an impact on population health, it just takes some time,” Hoppe said.

Amie Just is a University of Kansas senior from Funk, Neb., majoring in Journalism and Mass Communications.

Copyright Eagle Radio | FCC Public Files | EEO Public File