The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Community to benefit from Healthy People Project
Group to meet 7 p.m. Jan. 17 at Symons
By Jana Miller, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: January 8, 2009
Health and weight issues are still a major concern for most, and often prove troublesome. But any fitness resolutions made by Milan's residents may have a better shot at success this year with the creation of a new health group.
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The Health Awareness and Action in Milan group spawned the creation of a new project, Milan's Healthy People 2020 Project. HAAM will discuss that group at its meeting 7 p.m. Jan. 17 at Symons Elementary School.
The new group has evolved from and is based off the U.S. Department of Health's own Healthy People program.
Simon Evans of Milan is the chairman of the new group and acts as its director. He recently helped secure a grant for the project from the Judy Ivan Healthy Communities Foundation.
"The objective of the grant," Evans said, "was to create a social network directed at promoting health. We plan to educate people on health issues, promote specific health-oriented functions and help people establish peer support networks to maintain momentum."
The nationally-based project that Milan will mirror was first created in 1989 as Healthy People 2000. The plan was to improve health across America over a decade based on 10 health indicators. The indicators are ways to measure and gauge health changes in an area and include anything from smoking issues and sexual health to obesity and exercise.
Of course, Milan's needs have been more specified than that. Evans was at the forefront again, acting to customize the project to suit the community.
"Last month, I organized a meeting of Milan community leaders to help us focus on two to three of the 10 objectives since we cannot focus on them all," he said. "The group decided to focus on increasing physical activity, reducing obesity and improving mental health."
Since the first objective focuses on the physical aspects of health, HAAM is reinitiating a program it once promoted in the '90s.
"There will be organized walking groups and pre-defined routes with known distances," Evans said, "and we will plot out paths for people to walk and track miles to have a Walk Around the World program."
The second major objective involves reasonable exercise, but also places an emphasis on eating and dieting correctly. Dieting is a touchy subject for many and, although bookshelves are often lined with the newest dieting trends, it can be difficult to find success.
This is why Healthy Milan has brought on Tony Dean, author of "The F.A.S.T. Diet," to discuss his program and guide the community through the project's implementation.
"Other diets have an average of a 10 percent success rate, and our diet has an 87 percent success rate," Dean said. "Everybody knows you have to diet and exercise to succeed. What we've done is solve how to do that on days you don't want to. The accountability system in this is so amazing. You almost can't fail."
Dean's diet is essentially built on the idea of a tight-knit support system. At weekly weigh-ins, participants cheer for each other while each person is weighed.
Dieters must simply exercise 30 minutes every day, drink eight cups of water a day and keep track of what they eat. There are no food limitations.
Dean has worked alongside Symons Elementary School Principal Nancy Tetens with a local group of roughly 50 people. That group already has lost a total of 1,700 pounds.
"I met Tony as a result of the 'Lifetime' contest I was in last year," Tetens said. "I received so much support from the town of Milan while I was in the contest that I wanted to be able to give back and help others struggling with losing weight."
That sealed the deal, and Tetens arranged for Dean to visit and work with Milan residents.
"My ultimate goal is to involve 1,000 Milan residents in losing weight, exercising and getting healthy together," Tetens said. "We have a group of 50 or so and have already lost over 1,700 pounds together."
The upcoming HAAM meeting will feature Dean as a speaker. He will discuss his approach and dieting technique
The third objective of interest for the new project is close to Evans' own heart and concerns mental health. As a member of the research faculty in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan, Evans is very familiar with the subject. He has researched the link between lifestyles and mental health and authored "Brain Fit for Life."
"My own research focuses on how healthy lifestyles affect brain function, including mood and cognition," he said. "I focused on nutrition, physical activity, mental activity and optimal sleep, and how they control mood, memory and metabolism."
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