La Porte Hospital's first-ever Put Your Best Fork Forward: Diabetes Alert Day and Nutrition Healthy Fair took place today in La Porte and featured an expert team of nutritionists, dietitians and diabetic educators on hand to give out information to the attendees. The fair also featured a raffle, healthy food sampling and much more.
“Today, we are having an event for the community to come in and learn more about nutrition and diabetes," explained Katie Sarver, Manager of Wellness Outreach at La Porte Hospital."A group of us from Diabetic Educators and the Women's Outreach Department came together to provide some free screenings and some fun interactive activities for people to do. There’s an individual from our Health Portal, the library’s here [and] we have free healthy food samples, so [we want to] just get people engaged more in their overall healthy well-being,”
Each table offered different information about nutrition and diabetes. Deborah Meserve, Librarian from the La Porte Library, wanted to make sure attendees knew information was always available and always easily attainable.
“We have a lot of different healthy resources for folks who are wanting to do research on things that they are dealing with like diabetes and stuff that requires choosing better ways of eating. We have lots of cookbooks [and] different diet plans. People can explore eating habits that they can try to work into their lives, especially if they're not tech savvy and they don’t want to go on the internet, we have some really nice resources that they can check out and take home,” Meserve said.
“I know some people, like me, [who] grew up with a grandma who was a farmer’s wife, and [ate] lots of fat, cream, butter, milk and all that good stuff. Sometimes choosing to eat lighter and healthier is harder because that's not how I grew up. We can help educate people who might have just gotten the diagnosis to make them aware that there are resources out there, and they know that they can come to the library or a community health center and get some help to get started and they can live a longer, healthier life.”
There was a mixture of people who were attending an event like this for the first time, and people who were familiar with these types of fairs.
“It’s very needed here in La Porte. I go to all of the [fairs] in the area; Michigan City, South Bend - I make the rounds. It’s always nice [because] you always learn something new,” Shelia Kolar, attendee, said.
After seeing the smiles on people’s faces as they made their way around the room, it was safe to say that this first Diabetes Alert Day & Nutrition Health Fair was a success.
“I was excited to see the number of people who came through to learn more about how they can take better care of themselves. It’s National Nutrition Month, so being able to do something for the community in order to educate them about nutrition and healthy well-being is really important,” Sarver said.
