Rally celebrates Healthy Yuma 2011, welcomes ANDY

Hundreds of people in Yuma County who are interested in leading healthier lives attended the Healthy Yuma 2011 Celebration Rally at Cocopah Casino on Saturday. The event was held in conjunction with the Caballeros Territorial Half Marathon.

The rally commemorated efforts to meet goals set one year ago for Healthy Yuma 2011, which included losing 140 tons of fat and running or walking 3 million miles as a community.

While there is no way to actually measure the success of those goals, event organizers believe the citizens of Yuma County did very well in their quest for better health.

“The people that changed their lives, that is the most visible success,” said Dr. Carl Myers, an organizer of Healthy Yuma 2011. “It was a very rewarding experience.”

Saturday's rally also kicked off a new three-year initiative known as “A New Day Yuma” (ANDY), which will promote the same healthy living goals that were championed throughout 2011, and add new goals.

ANDY will also encourage Yumans to abstain from binge drinking and abusing prescription drugs.

“We have some major challenges in front of us,” Myers said. “Three quarters of the damage that is done by alcohol is done by people who are not alcoholics, but are binge drinkers.”

Myers cited a study that charted a 74 percent increase in the occurrence of binge drinking in the last decade.

“The average went up from six and a half drinks per session to just over 8,” he said. “That is a huge increase. That is more than a 20 percent increase.”

He noted that those who consume the most amount of alcohol are 65 and older.

“The frequency was much higher in the elderly than what they had predicted,” he said.

Prescription drug abuse has increased by about 200 percent in the last ten years, he added.

While encouraging people to abstain from unhealthy behaviors during the next 3 years, the organizers of ANDY will also promote positive mental health.

Part of achieving positive mental health includes improving personal relationships with family members, friends and neighbors by devoting at least three hours to them each week, Myers said.

Another activity on the path to positive mental health is to volunteer. Myers encourages Yumans to put in eight hours of volunteer work each month.

“If you go to a good volunteer opportunity and you come out of that feeling like ‘wow, I made a difference,' that makes a huge difference,” he said. “I think it could energize individuals, institutions and the community. It's an integrated package of how we get healthier as a community over the next three years.”

Myers hopes ANDY will give those who didn't get involved in Healthy Yuma 2011 a chance to change to a healthier lifestyle now, he said.

Chris McDaniel can be reached at cmcdaniel@yumasun.com or 539-6849.