About 50 people battling heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and high blood pressure walked into the first Coronary Health Improvement Project (CHIP) meeting 45 days ago, unaware that the journey they were about to set out on would be life-saving for some and life-changing for all.
Tonight, that now-healthier group will meet formally for the last time, but its new friendships and lifestyle changes will last a lifetime.
Southeast Ohio has the highest rate of chronic disease in the state, the Appalachian Rural Health Institute reported in 2006, and one of the highest rates in the country. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, 70 percent of deaths among Americans each year are caused by chronic disease and can be prevented through lifestyle changes.
“We need to make more emphasis on prevention,” said Tom Kostohryz, chairman of Live Healthy Appalachia. “Lifestyle medicine is maybe the best preventative medicines that we can give.”
Sticking to an almost all-vegan diet is one requirement of participating in the CHIP program. But vegan foods are not cheap, nor are they easily found. Louise Koons, initiative coordinator for Live Healthy Appalachia, said although the term “food desert” — meaning a place where affordable, healthy food is difficult to obtain — is often applied to inner cities, Athens County qualifies as one.
“We have access to healthy foods in Athens, like the Farmer’s Market,” she said. “But in our outlying communities, those resources don’t exist.”
Rather than supermarkets stocked with fresh produce and healthy foods, many areas surrounding the city of Athens have only gas stations, drive-thrus and carryouts for buying groceries.
For $295, CHIP members get a vegan cookbook upon entry and food demonstrations twice a week. Every Tuesday and Thursday, they come to class carrying cookbooks and their personal binders in red CHIP totes. In the first 15 minutes of the two-hour class, they share stories about struggles they have faced and goals they have met.
“I have been in so much pain in the last year that I was literally unable to walk,” said Karen Corleau, who took up swimming for the CHIP program. “My pain (tolerance) level has increased by 80 percent and I can walk now.”
Reversing chronic disease through lifestyle changes will be the focus of Live Healthy Appalachia’s first annual Appalachian Health Summit, which begins tomorrow. The summit will be divided into three conferences directed toward different audiences: health care professionals, employers and community members.
The two-day summit will feature 15 speakers from around the country. Their presentations range from eating more and weighing less to being heart-attack-proof and improving health in elementary schools.
Two of the speakers, nutritionists Dr. T. Colin Campbell of Cornell University and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn of the Cleveland Clinic, just debuted their documentary, Forks Over Knives, this month.
Their film is now traveling to theaters around the country and getting attention from Roger Ebert and Entertainment Weekly. It focuses primarily on the benefits of eating a plant-based diet, which corresponds with Campbell’s and Esselstyn’s discussion this weekend.
“Hopefully enough people will be inspired to take the next steps and move into action,” Kostohryz said. “That’s what we want them to do.”
Visitors might be inspired to join the second round of CHIP.
“This class is a community,” a lady shouted during class.
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