Faith-based conferences designed for black women

By Sara Greene

LITTLE ROCK — Dr. Felicia Taylor and Dr. Letha Mosley of the University of Central Arkansas are hosting faith-based health conferences geared toward black women.

The second of three conferences will be 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Mt. Gale Missionary Baptist Church at 8 Brannon Drive in Conway.

The conference will include discussions on not only what science says about being healthy, but the biblical perspective, Mosley said.

For example, 3 John 2 in the King James version: “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”

Mosley said, “Ninety percent of my family is obese. I’m still struggling with my weight, and we don’t have individuals who are stick thin at the conference.”

The Living Legacies: Learning and Choosing Healthy Lifestyles conference will include information on eating in moderation and everyday life. Guest speakers will be Barbara Wilborn and Millie Goins. The topics include lessons on grocery shopping, hands-on healthy meal preparation, light exercise and body measurements.

“Women tend to take care of other people before ourselves. Obesity is sometimes the food we eat, sometimes it’s genetic. There are a lot of small things you can do on everyday occasions, like getting up to change the channel instead of using theremote,” Mosley said.

Among the health tips the conference provides are keeping a food diary, which is writing down what one eats each day, and making time during the day to exercise, such as walking during a lunch hour.

Taylor said, “The conference will offer African-Americanwomen to take some time out for themselves and learn some valuable health information that a lot of time they don’t receivedue to many factors.”

She said all women of color “are just at higher risk [for certain health problems] when you compare us, and we just have to be sensitive to those issues.”

Taylor, who teaches in the health sciences department, and Mosley, who teaches in the occupational therapy department, conduct the conferences and research with a $3,500 grant from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, Region 6.

After the conferences there are participant surveys and focus groups to determine if a one-day conference can influence lifestyle choices.

“I hope it will show the conferences are beneficial. We’ll process the data provided by the preconference pretest, the body-mass index measurements,weight, blood pressure and the post test, which asks them about what they learned and their plans. The surveys will see what their weight is and did they make any changes,” Mosley said.

Mosley said there is she had always had this type of research in mind, and Taylor had already been studying health disparities through religions.

“It’s fun, and I think a lot of participants thought the first conference was worth giving up a part of their weekend and to attend,” Mosley said.

The first was in April in North Little Rock and the third one will be in Lincoln County.

River Valley Ozark, Pages 69 on 05/15/2008