Event spotlights health
Kaiser provides activities at festival
Los Medanos College hosted the Kaiser Permanente Health and Wellness Festival Tuesday, Nov. 10 to educate students and staff about making healthier and smarter lifestyle choices.
“We’re offering health screenings for students and faculty alike. They’re preventative health screenings — hardly painful,” said Mike Otto of Clinical Health Appraisals Inc. Otto explained the entire screening process being offered, which took around 12 minutes to complete.
Clinical Health Appraisals Inc. provided cholesterol and glucose screenings, as well as stations for students to check their blood pressure and body mass index. Other businesses at the festival included Massage Garage, Inflatable Adventures and Fresh Approach.
Chase Hendrickson-Jones and Oleg Karpuk, Inflatable Adventures representatives from Sacramento, were optimistic about the event.
“Greatest crowds ever,” said Karpuk about LMC students. “The people hung out here for about half an hour. That’s a lot longer than at other events.”
LMC student Elliott Abdullah, was brave enough to attempt the rock wall brought to campus. After signing a waiver and choosing the difficulty of the course, he attempted to climb the wall as his friends looked on.
“I want to try it, but I’m scared to try it,” said LMC child development major Janae Seei, while she watched Abdullah climb.
For students seeking a more relaxing activity, Massage Garage was there to help to offer such services. Keri Denney and Tania Watkins “thought the event was going well” and chatted with students as they massaged them.
Across from Denney and Watkins, was Aaron Winner with Fresh Approach, a mobile farmers’ market. Fresh Approach, was not just at LMC for the event but has been coming to campus every Tuesday for the last several weeks.
“Our goal is to promote healthy eating, mainly in low income areas,” said Winner.
Fresh Approach is based out of Concord and is focused on helping people create and maintain healthy eating habits by offering nutrition courses and other information to, predominantly, low income families.
“Pittsburg, by USDA standards, is a food desert,” said Winner.
