Scott Sines, ©The Green Rocket News
Frank Davis is a 51-year-old stroke survivor. He brought his 14-year-old son Logan to a gathering of about 200 at the Kroc Center on Saturday morning to learn about controlling hypertension. “I’d like to keep him from (repeating) what I went through,” Davis said, recalling the three-day headache that eventually led him to the emergency room. Since then he’s been feeding his son and daughter information about healthy eating. “They get on my case sometimes,” he says about straying from healthy eating habits.
Eddie Fulton heard about the health fair from his church bulletin. He had a close friend suddenly pass away from a stroke and decided to pay more attention to his health.
Lionel Hollins has been managing his blood pressure since he was diagnosed with hypertension as a 27 year-old point guard for the Detroit Pistons. The former Grizzlies coach keynoted the gathering and shared his experiences and his family history with the group. His grandmother has hypertension. Ditto sister and his son.
The Common Table Health Alliance hosted the “140/90: Living Life Under Pressure” men’s health event on Saturday, June 21. The goal was to provide information for men to take control of their blood pressure. Known as the “silent killer” hypertension affects 1 in 3 people in the U.S. It is a particular problem for men, especially African-American men.
An interactive exercise asked the audience to rate from low to high the sodium content of five products: V-8 juice, a Banquet turkey dinner with gravy, creamed corn, Kroger “low sodium” breakfast sausage and a rib dinner. When the group rated the canned corn a voice from the audience chimed in, “You can’t have canned corn without canned green beans and fried chicken.” It turns out every one of the foods in the test is loaded with salt the main contributing factor to high blood pressure.
While the focus of event was on Men’s health most of the booths at the Kroc centered were staff by women. Over half of the crowd were women concerned about their husbands, brothers and sons health.
Read more about the Common Table Health Alliance.
