“If you can show someone how special they are, that they are wonderfully made, that empowers them with value and it changes their lives.” So says Pam Van Meter, a certified health education specialist who works at the Bethesda Clinic in Tyler Texas.
The clinic provides women with job training and other life skills. The women attend classes twice a week and learn to cook healthy meals from scratch while focusing on the message of the program: cook nutritious meals and limit portion sizes. Here clients learn the basics of good nutrition, which includes using less processed foods and adding more vegetables to the diet.
A focus on nutrition has slowly expanded at the clinic. Health officials say poor nutrition is at the core of the obesity epidemic and chronic illnesses, which costs have overwhelmingly burdened the health care system. The clinic hopes the basics learned in the nutrition classes will resonate with entire families. It’s not enough for one person to create a healthy lifestyle, Bethesda officials say. If the family can enjoy and embrace good nutrition, it could break the cycle of chronic illness in each family.
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