| For Immediate Release | Contact: Joyce Faria Brennan |
| September 18, 2006 | 508-961-5270 |
| brennanj@southcoast.org | |
 Get this release in Word format |
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Click here for information about Southcoast SPORT's 12-Week Walking Program
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Southcoast Hospitals, in partnership with the YMCA Southcoast, will participate in "America on the Move Week at the YMCA," a national effort to promote more active and healthy lifestyles. Southcoast will help promote the "Steptember" challenge, designed to encourage people to incorporate activity into their daily routines.
"Our region has a very high rate of heart disease and other health problems that can be at least partly attributed to sedentary lifestyles," noted Susan Oliveira, RN, Team Leader for the Southcoast Health Van, which travels throughout the South Coast to provide free health screenings and education. "We are pleased to be able to participate in this region-wide initiative with the YMCA Southcoast, which will hopefully result in efforts by local families to become more active and healthy."
The Southcoast Health Van will offer free screenings and education at a regional Family Health Fair at the Dartmouth YMCA, 276 Gulf Road in Dartmouth on Sunday, September 24, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and at the Gleason Family YMCA, 33 Charge Pond Road in Wareham on Monday, September 25, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Free screenings will include blood pressure, blood glucose testing, cholesterol testing, cancer screening and awareness kits and bone density testing. Staff from Southcoast's Cardiac Rehab program will be on hand to provide education on heart health and staff from Southcoast's Sports Performance and Orthopedic Rehabilitation Team (SPORT), will offer fitness testing with prizes for those with the highest scores.
The goal of "America on the Move Week at the YMCA" is to encourage Americans to become more active by consciously adding "steps" to their daily lives.
"Research from organizations such as the America on the Move Foundation (AOMF) has shown that small, consistent changes to daily physical activity and eating patterns can add up over time to big rewards. For instance, adding just 2,000 extra steps and eating 100 fewer calories each day are enough to help most American prevent the current annual average weight gain of one to two pounds, " according to Nancy LaRrue Bonnell, Regional Vice President of YMCA Southcoast.
For more information about the "Steptember" challenge and to obtain tip sheets and exercise logs, visit southcoast.org.
About Southcoast
Southcoast Health System, a not-for-profit charitable organization, is a community based health delivery system with multiple access points, offering an integrated continuum of advanced health services throughout Southeastern Massachusetts and East Bay, Rhode Island. It includes Southcoast Hospitals Group, formed in 1996 from the merger of Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River, St. Luke's Hospital in New Bedford and Tobey Hospital in Wareham.
Southcoast has more than 40 ancillary facilities, including the Southcoast Health Van, home health care, hospice and infusion services, numerous outpatient medical services, an assisted living facility and a wellness center. For more information visit www.southcoast.org.
Southcoast is one of three community hospitals approved by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to perform open heart surgery and primary angioplasty beginning in Spring 2002.
Media Contact
Paula Griswold
Phone: 781-272-8000 Ext. 152
Fax: 781-272-0605
pgriswold@macoalition.org
