Shepard Nevel is the President & CEO of LiveWell Colorado, a nonprofit that works to reduce obesity and improve health by increasing access to nutritious food and opportunities for physical activity throughout the state.

On this week’s show, we discuss the work of LiveWell, and how when it comes to obesity, there’s a lot more to it than just personal responsibility and action. LiveWell focuses on a variety of things ranging from school lunches to advocating for more physical activity to promoting access to healthy food in communities where that’s more challenging to changing the way our built environment (sidewalks, bike paths, etc.) exists to better promote healthy living.

It’s a fantastically insightful episode and speaks to one of the things I’ve learned over the course of doing 90 of these episodes. All of the challenges we face as a society are never as simple or as binary as we think they are. It makes sense that if a community has no sidewalks, its residents are deprived by their very environment of an opportunity to be more physically active in a very easy and fundamental way, but it’s certainly not in the top 10 things I would have thought about if you would have asked me what contributes to obesity.

And that’s why I enjoyed this episode so much. Not only is Nevel Shepard an engaging, thoughtful, savvy executive, he’s also a cool guy who approaches what he does with enthusiasm and creativity. I learned a lot over the course of this episode, and I suspect you will, too. If you like what LiveWell does and what to help them have continued success, you can get involved or make a donation.

You can check out this episode on iTunes or Stitcher. While you’re there, take a second and give us a rating and/or a review. And pay some love to our sponsor, 4 Degre.es, and our producer Deft Communications.

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