Yes, Natchez is unique. No other place quite like it exists anywhere. Three centuries of preserved history makes our community a bit like a time capsule of sorts. That’s what draws thousands of tourists year in and year out.

But strip away the history and Natchez demographically isn’t all that different than other parts of Mississippi.

On average, Mississippians are poorer and less healthy than the average American.

Like all good Southerners, we love our food, usually in large portions and, well, the sweltering summers mean many of us aren’t as active as we need to be either.

As a result, too many of us die from largely preventable or at least moderately controllable diseases.

Last year, the City of Natchez started a program funded by the Clinton Health Matters Initiative.

The goal of the program is to ultimately improve the health and wellness of residents through effectively educating and empowering people to help them and encourage others to get involved.

The program’s goal is a worthy one, but also an achievable one at least to the extent people want to actually change their lifestyles.

One of programs goals is to make Natchez a smoke-free city by 2020. We all know the dangers cigarettes can cause to those who smoke. We fully support any plan that would ban smoking from public places as it prevents one person’s “right” to smoke from ruining the rest of our right to breath clean air.

Such a move, if ever formalized, will certainly draw fire from tobacco smokers, but they would still be allowed to smoke at their own residences, just not within sniffing range of the rest of us.

Natchez would be smart to follow the plan and improve the health of all its residents.