Preventing lifestyle related health problems was the focus of yesterday’s annual Well Bermuda Partnership meeting.

Organisations working to improve health and wellness in the community met to share progress and reflect on the successes and challenges faced in the past year.

“Health promotion and health education have been identified as priority areas globally,” Virloy Lewin, health promotion coordinator with the Department of Health, said.

“In Bermuda, it is particularly important to use health promotion to tackle preventable health problems, which are placing unnecessary stress on limited healthcare resources.”

“As an example, we want people to move more. One recent initiative is the one billion steps Bermuda programme, which encourages everyone to log the steps they walk between now and April 1 to see if we can get to a billion.”

According to a statement from the Department of health, the focus of the meeting was also on the impact of preventable diseases, such as diabetes and obesity, on the health of Bermuda’s population.

Well Bermuda brings the Department of Health together with a wide range of organisations — including the charitable and private sector — to achieve greater coordination and mobilisation of resources.

Through the Well Bermuda National Health Promotion Strategy, it aims to prevent further deterioration of the community’s health.

“This requires new ways of thinking, and health promotion is an essential ingredient,” a statement said.

“Each goal within the strategy is interconnected in some way to ensure overall Bermuda’s good health.”

Junior Minister of Health and Seniors, Senator Lynne Woolridge, who opened the meeting, added: “Changing our culture so that the healthy choice becomes the easier choice will take a concerted and unified effort. Healthy people develop healthy families and in turn create a healthy community. If one part is missing, then the picture is not complete”.

Key speakers from the Department of Health were senior medical officer Janice Chang, who spoke on “Diabetes and Obesity in Bermuda, Proposal for a National Plan of Action”, and Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit assessment officer Dy-Juan DeRoza, who talked about “Health in Review: Focus on Obesity and Related Conditions”.

Marie Beach Johnson and Arnold Manders spoke about the Premier’s Youth Fitness Programme, while David Kendell, the Director of the Department of Health, shared a vision for presenting health indicators on dashboards to better engage individuals, families and communities as they strive for optimal health.