BATON ROUGE — Data show that Louisiana has the third-highest rate of childhood obesity in the nation, at around 25 percent, and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center and state health officials have launched an initiative called "Greaux Healthy" to promote healthy lifestyles among the young.

The program's director, Melissa Martin, told the Baton Rouge Press Club on Monday that researchers hope to identify triggers of chronic diseases, including obesity, diabetes and cancer.

Their work continues despite questions over future funding at the National Institutes of Health, which supports many of Pennington's programs. Some of the money used at the Perkins Road-based center is used for clinical trials, such as one which recently had one of our WBRZ colleagues as a patient.

"I did a study with Pennington starting in about October of 2024," said Sarah Lawrence, from the WBRZ web team. "There was a bunch of screening. I had to go through a full physical. EKG, blood test, just kind of everything they could imagine to make sure that I was eligible to try out this weight loss drug that they were testing."

Read more of Sarah's story here.