Editor’s Note: Every week, Breaking Bronx features a health-related story, event or tidbit as part of an online expansion of our Be Healthy! column.

The second wave of Shop Healthy NYC programs are coming to local retailers in the South Bronx neighborhoods of Mott Haven, Hunts Point, and Longwood, the city’s Health Department announced late last month.

The program, operated in conjunction with the NYC Center for Economic Opportunity, first launched in West Farms and Fordham in June 2012 and is designed to fight the borough’s disproportionately high obesity rates by encouraging local delis, mobile vendors, and supermarket chains to stock healthy snacks, limit sugary beverages, supply more fresh produce to their customers, and increase the visibility of healthy products throughout their stores.

The Health Department reported that the Shop Healthy NYC program successfully persuaded 95 percent of the 175 participating stores to provide healthier snacks. It also encouraged 70 percent of participating retailers to provide customers with healthy deli and canned food options and to display water at a visible eye level.

Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said action is urgent.

“More than one in six adults in the Bronx is now overweight or obese, and has developed or is at risk of developing related illnesses like diabetes,” he said. “Shop Healthy NYC’s approach acknowledges that we must work on multiple levels to change our environment so that healthy foods are easily accessible to all people,” Farley added.

According to Health Department statistics, the Bronx has the highest obesity rate of any of the five boroughs at 30.5 percent, compared to the 13.9 percent in Manhattan. Five of the 10 community districts with the greatest rates of diabetes-related deaths are in the Bronx, the Health Department also reported.

“Diabetes and obesity are serious health conditions affecting thousands of Bronx residents,” said Bronx Council Member Maria del Carmen Arroyo, who represents the neighborhoods that will be added to the program. “Access to healthy food is essential to combating these conditions.”

The program’s Adopt-a-Shop initiative allows local residents to have an active role in promoting healthy eating in their neighborhoods by encouraging them to support local retailers.

“The Adopt-a-Shop program has allowed our teens and young adults to see that healthy choices can have a huge impact,” said Caroline D. Davis, director of Teen Services at St. Barnabas Hospital and Union Community Health Center. “They are now more interested in leading a healthier lifestyle and telling their own stories about how they’ve made healthy changes.”

The new programs will impact an estimated 100,000 Bronx residents, according to a recent press release from the Health Department.