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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 20, 2000)
September 20, 2000 Page A5 |Jm *tlauò (D hscruer i Health/Education Vancouver Women Joins Diet Study Decides to get serious about her health Ella Anderson, a longtime Port land resident who now lives in Vancouver, recently decided to get serious about taking care other health. “My blood pressure had been going up and down for quite awhile,” says Mrs. A nder son. “There’s history o f high blood pres sure in my family, so I was starting to get concerned. Then 1 got a postcard from Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Re search in Portland in viting me tojoin their research study about reducing blood pressu re. Ella Anderson When 1 saw the study involved changing my diet and exer cising more, and didn’t involve tak ing drags, I just knew I had to give it a serious try.” Like hundreds of other people across the United States, Mrs. Ander son volunteered to participate in PRE MIER, a new research program study ing the effects o f a healthy diet and exercise on blood pressure. High blood pressure (also known as hypertension) affects nearly one in four Americans. While high blood pressure can occur in anyone at any age, it is particularly common in older people and African Americans. People with high blood pressure have a greater riskofheart a tta c k s , strokes and kidney dis ease. Past re search has shown that w e ig h t loss, exer cise and a healthy diet can each re d u c e blood pres sure and help control hypertension. PREMIER is the first research program to study the com bined effect o f these three ways to lower blood pressure. Taking blood pressure medication is also an effective way to control hypertension but can be costly, dif ficult to use, and have negative side effects. "Uoined PREMIER formyselfand for others, especially for other Afri can Americans,” says Mrs. Ander son. I want to feel better, and I want my quality o f life to be better. I want to be here for my family and my grandkids. As an African American, I also think it’s very important tojoin a study like this. High blood pressure is a major problem in our community, but I’m not sure we take it seriously enough. We need to be more con scious o f what we eat, especially fat and sodium, and we need to get more exercise.” People whojoin PREMIER are in volved in the study for 18 months. “1 don’t think about the 18 months,” Mrs. Anderson says. “I take it one day at a time and, after three months, eating healthier foods and getting more exercise are becoming my new way of life. Eating the foods they recommend was pretty easy for me because I love vegetables, but exercising more was harder. Now it’s fun and exciting. I see differences in my energy, my weight and my shape." Mrs. Anderson attends group and individual classes at the Center for Health Research, which is located at 3800 North Interstate Avenue Portland. “I felt very com fortable going to classes,” says Mrs. Anderson. “The PREMIER staff and the other people in the study are very supportive." Freedom Summer 2000 A s this summer winds to a close, I wanted to take another opportunity to write about one o f the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) and Black Com- m u n ity C ru sad e for C hildren (BCCC)’s signature programs: our Summer and After-School Freedom Schools. At the beginning o f the sea son, I shared w hat our Freedom School children were reading this summer. This time I want to tell you about the Freedom School day and what students learn from the Freedom School experience. Freedom schools were first estab lished in Mississippi as part o f the voter registration and community mobilization efforts during the leg endary Freedom Summer o f 1964. In 1993 the C hild ren ’s D efense Fund and the B lack Com m unity Crusade for C hildren began coor dinating a new Freedom School m ovem ent as a means o fb rin g in g p a re n ts , c o lle g e - a g e d y o u n g ad u lt, and com m unity leaders to g e th e r to serv e and m en to r children, strengthen p arent and c o m m u n ity in v o lv e m e n t in children’s education and achieve m ent, and train a su ccessor gen eration o f young leaders. Religious, local school groups, and other community-based organiza tions sponsor Freedom Schools in their communities, coordinating the fund-raising and overall management. Each site is ran by a project director and site coordinator. Children are taught by college- aged servant-leaders and mentors who are trained at Haley Farm, CD’s center for intergenerational spiritual renewal, leadership development, and community capacity building. Identifying and training these ser vant-leaders is a key part of the free dom School experience and al lows us to develop a new generation o f young people committed to serving children. Parents are required to attend parenting workshops in order for their children to participate. Many parents leave the workshops feeling as if they have learned just as much as their children from the Free dom School experience. The Summer Freedom School day begins with breakfast. The nutritious meals and snacks students and staff share together are an important part o f the program and are subsidized by the Department of Agriculture's Sum mer Food Service Program. Tips for Parents: Help Kids Use Brains to Battle Bullies Sooner or later, your child may en counter a bully. How will your child handle that encounter? How might you help? There was a time when it was thought that bullies didn't intend to be malicious— underneath was a lovable sweetheart suffering from low self-esteem. Researchers are rethinking that point of view, says Maggie Greene, a safe-schools trainer with the National Resource Center for Safe Schools at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. “Bullies seem to have pretty strong self-esteem,” Maggie reports. "Their behavior is learned, it’s learned early, and it needs to be remedied early, before the age of eight, in order to prevent chronic bul lying behavior." Bullying, she explains, is when one child or a group intentionally hurts another child over and over again, and over a prolonged period. It’s beyond good-natured occasional joking or teasing. Hurt is inflicted Real-world instructors ^2? A • Easy transfer ZJaB Low cost ■*' through assaults tnat can range trom words, such as name calling or taunt ing, to physical aggression— kick ing, shoving, fighting. And a subtler, but just as damaging form, says Maggie, is shunning or socially iso lating a child. Maggie suggests that parental an tennae be attuned to signs that could suggest that their child might be hav ing trouble with a bully. Here are just some of the signs to watch for. If your child: • Comes home from school with cuts and braises, damaged school materi als, and/or clothes dirty and/or torn • Frequently loses possessions • Appears afraid, or depressed, or moody • Often cries before going to sleep • Feels ill in the morning to avoid Celebrate the “Soul o f the City! With Small classes By M arias W right E delman going to school • Loses interest in school work • Becomes quiet, passive, or anxious Kids often hesitate to reveal they are being bullied. If you suspect something is amiss, take the direct approach and ask if there’s a prob lem. Although kids typically will deny it initially, encourage him or her to share their feelings by assuring that you’ll help and support them in solving any problems. Maggie advises, however, not to promise that you won’t tell. Instead, reiterate and reassure of your support and assistance in helping the child to work out the problem. The best strat egy, says Maggie, is to teach your kids ways of avoiding encounters with a bully. Some parents worry that they’re teaching their kids to be cow ards, and that socking the bully will solve the problem once and for all. On the contrary, contends Maggie. Re turning aggression with aggression escalates and inflames a situation. Instead, help develop strategies to solve the problem. Here are a few: • Avoid the bully. Don’t be alone where the bully can pick on you. • Enlist a friend to help. Bullies have a harder time picking on one person if someone else is around. • Try not to show a reaction; bullies like reactions. If you think these add up to a great education, you’ve already The Urban League of Portland Dinner, Wednesday evening October 4, 2000 wants you to save this You will receive an invitation after Labor Day, but please mark your calendar now for this special occasion! For more information, call the Urban League at (503)280-2600. passed your first test. Classes start the week of Sept. 25. Call 503-614-7270. www.pcc.edu Portland Community College College That fits Tour Life SAFEWAY FO O D & DRUG Tickets: $ 175 each/ S 1,750 for a table of 10, $5,000 for Dinner Sponsorship. Proceeds benefit The Urban League of Portland and its program. The Urban League o f Portland. ION. Russell street. 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