VLP, Special Olympics Florida partner to bring Healthy Community program for adults with disabilities

The Center for Disease Control reports that adults with disabilities are three times more likely to have heart disease, diabetes, cancer or other chronic diseases than adults without disabilities. Taking a pro-active approach to keep their clients as healthy as possible, Victory Living Programs (VLP) has partnered with Special Olympics Florida to bring the Healthy Community program to VLP.

The Healthy Community 24-week nutrition program launched at VLP in May and will continue until November 2015. Individuals from VLP's Adult Day Training Program, who previously participated in a similar 10-week nutrition program, along with their family members and caregivers, will be participating.

"When we approached Victory Living Programs with the Healthy Community program, they supported us wholeheartedly, and the participants have already reaped the benefits of many of our programs," said Karlyn Emile, Healthy Community Program Director for Special Olympics South Florida. "With this new program, we wanted to encourage continuity of the desired behaviors learned in the previous 10-week program, as well as engage family members and caregivers in the process."

Each Friday, program instructors Kim Frietas, RN, and Nohora C. Duque will lead VLP's Adult Day Program clients, their family members and VLP staff in a series of sessions focused on providing proper nutrition education and counseling, meal planning, healthy meal preparation, demonstrations and healthy recipes, and physical activity. The instructors will also conduct pre and post anthropometric measurements to measure the health progress of each program participant.

"Many of the program participants have already lost 3 to 20 pounds in the previous 10-week program," said Emile. "We hope that from this extension, participants will learn and maintain new, healthy behaviors such as proper nutrition, physical activities, hydration and stress management."

Because of the disparities in levels of overweight and obesity issues in the population of adults with intellectual disabilities, in 2013, Emile developed Healthy Community as a tailored wellness program to help reduce these disparities. The program aims to help prevent chronic illnesses related to improper food choices and a sedentary lifestyle.