NY Wellness Week Focuses on Prevention
Educating residents about non-communicable diseases like heart disease, cancer, lung disease, diabetes and obesity
September 20, 2011
These vendors promote jogging and healthy eating during Wellness Week in New York's Harlem neighborhood.
The air was crisp and the music was loud in the vast plaza in front of the New York State office building in Harlem as health advocates and vendors set up information tables for Harlem Wellness Week.
It is a wide-ranging effort to educate residents about non-communicable diseases - heart disease, cancer, lung disease, diabetes and obesity.
Economic impact
There is an economic effect to these diseases, especially in Harlem, one of the city’s poorest districts. Without healthy employees and healthy customers, you cannot have healthy businesses, says Patricia Ricketts of the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors Wellness Week.
“Businesses, their assets leave every day at five o’clock - their primary assets being their employees. And so if their employees are not healthy then they are paying high health-care costs for those employees. They are paying higher costs in the fact that people are just not there to do the work.”
Diet is a risk factor for disease, and sometimes traditional foods are not the most healthful. African American “soul” food for example, is often deep fried. But Ricketts says that one need not choose between one’s culture and one’s health. She encourages restaurants to offer healthy choices on their menus, and to advertise the number of calories in their entrees.
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