This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Scheronda Gregory grew up in a household where her mother disdained exercise and prepared meals with “a lot of butter, a lot of salt, things that we know we are not supposed to have.”
On Sunday, during the second session of a health and wellness program called Fit City, Gregory talked about the difficulties of having a conversation about health and physical fitness with a mother who, at age 66, weighs more than 300 pounds and needs 14 pills and two insulin injections to get through the day.
“My concern is that she’s headed for a stroke or something more severe because it’s a challenge just to get her to get up and move, even walk downstairs to the mailbox,” Gregory says.
Still, Gregory’s voice expresses a glimmer of hope as she talks about being hospitalized for surgery in January. Upon Gregory’s discharge from the hospital, her mother moved in to help the daughter recuperate.
“I told her I didn’t want her buying pork or frying food and eating other things that she normally eats at home. Since I was spending the money, she had to listen.”
The mother stayed with the daughter for about six weeks.
“And she lost 26 pounds,” an elated Gregory says. “After moving back to her home, my mother has taken on a few pounds. But at least she did take some of those good eating habits with her.”
Her message to the audience of about 100 people underscored the consensus that there was no silver bullet to tackle obesity.
“It involves a lot of time and commitment because you are undoing a pattern that began when we thought it couldn’t happen to us because we were going to watch our weight by eating a little of this and a little of that. But the problem starts when you have a little bit of this or that all day long. It’s bad for us. Real bad.”
The Fit City initiative is a community conversation about the health consequences of being overweight, particularly among residents of the north side, which has disproportionately high rates of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The first community forum took place on April 14 at Central Baptist Church. The second session on Sunday was hosted by New Sunny Mount MB Church and moderated by Rev. Clyde Crumpton.
Among those taking part in the conversation at New Sunny Mount was Dr. Carolyn Pryor, who is a member of the congregation. While calling a church environment ideal for discussions about improving community health, she also stressed the challenges residents in some communities face in trying to stay healthy.
“There are many different facets of why we are obese,” she says, mentioning neighborhoods lacking grocery stores, the prevalence of fast food restaurants on many street corners, and the reality of children growing up in homes where “parents are busy working and doing so many different things that they don’t have time to plan healthy meals.”
The severity of the problem was reinforced, she said, during a visit to her hometown of Lambert, Miss., a few years ago. During the visit, she wanted to order a grilled chicken salad at a fast food outlet and discovered that the restaurant didn’t serve salad.
“None whatsoever. I grew up in an area that’s impoverished and a lot of people there don’t eat salad.” She said communities should encourage restaurants to offer customers healthy alternatives to hamburgers and fries, and that customers must also get in the habit of consuming those healthy selections.
Staying fit and fighting the potential of becoming overweight require lots of work, she says. “I haven’t always been like this,” she says, pointing to her body. “I have the same challenges of everyone else while being a mom, or being a doctor, or trying to do things in the community. I know it’s difficult. But if you want to live long healthy lives, then you have to make a commitment to do what’s best for your health. No one else has control over that except you. In order to make a change you have to have self-motivation.”
That term struck a chord with Linda Mackey, a social service worker.
“My concern is that I need to be more active and focused,” she said. “I’ve learned as a diabetic to cut down on my fried food, my bread and carbs, but I’m not exercising. A lot of that involves excuses, not being motivated, telling myself I’m too tired.”
She says that mind-set discourages her from getting into her car and driving to a site to exercise because “dogs are there and I’m afraid of dogs. So I use that as an excuse.”
After listening to Sunday’s conversation, she says she now realizes that her negative attitude about exercise has to change.
“This forum has been very helpful because I feel it’s going to motivate me to set examples for others. After today, I am going to find time to exercise.”
Others in the audience said the key to shedding pounds didn’t always mean giving up all bad food choices at once.
“You start to make changes by taking small steps,” said Trina Williams, a teacher in the Normandy School District. “Instead of eating fried food every day, maybe you can start by eating it a day or two each week, while cutting back on sweets, sodas and other sugary things.”
She says gang violence is an issue in some neighborhood and that residents in the general area now have a YMCA program in O'Fallon Park, down the street from New Sunny Mount, offering youngsters and adults alike a safe haven offering a range of programs to help them stay active.
“Kids nowadays are so fascinated with video games that they entertain themselves that way. They eat, they lay down and play video games. They are not active. As parents and people who work with children, we have to get them active the best way we can.”
Participants in the Fit City program also got a wholesome meal of green salad, chicken salad, chick pea salad, fresh fruit and whole wheat rolls, prepared under the leadership of Scott Drake, who is in charge of food development for Schnucks. “We are thinking about putting this chicken salad in our stores,” he said. “I want you to be the judge first. If you like it, then we already have a name for it: Baptist Church Chicken Salad.”
Following the meal, participants got in a little exercise, thanks to Precious Green. She’s part of the YWCA team that manages programs in the O’Fallon Park Rec Complex. Green urged participants to get in the habit of engaging in low-impact exercises in between television commercials, substituting bottles of water for weights while moving limbs and upper and lower parts of the body. At one point while standing on a stage and demonstrating various moves, Green generated a lot of laughter when she said, “I don’t know about y’all, but I’m getting warm up here.”
Organizations that took part in Sunday’s event were the Grace Hill Health Centers, the American Heart Association, the Institute for Public Health at Washington University, Nurses for Newborns, and the YMCA at the O’Fallon Park Rec Complex Other partners that are expected to host future Fit City events include 100 Black Men of St. Louis.
