Health Awareness Day at King Arthur's Community School
An event about health and fitness always grabs my attention. So I was keen to attend the Health Awareness Day at King Arthur's Community School last Thursday afternoon. Judging by the crowds when I arrived, so were a lot of others.
The aim of the event was to raise awareness of health by having professionals exhibiting from the health and fitness industry (nutritionists, sports therapists, reflexologists, complementary health practitioners etc), as well as a range of local clubs and organisations from Wincanton.
My first stop was The British Heart Foundation, where lots of information was available to explain their work and the types of food that are good and bad for our hearts. Coronary heart disease is the most common cause of death in the UK according to the BHF web site. But heart disease is largely preventable if we would only put more thought into our diets. Images of doughnuts, chocolate and pizza stared up at me from the various leaflets – I know the point was to show me the error of my sweet-toothed ways, but quite honestly my mouth was watering and I could have been forgiven for taking the nearest exit to a fast food outlet.
It was perhaps just as well, therefore, that my next stop was the stand of The Growing Space at the Balsam Centre. The Growing Space runs a wide range of gardening activities for anyone to join in with and offers advice for new gardeners and food growers. On offer from their stand was a selection of home-grown produce. I tasted some fresh mustard lettuce, innocuous enough at first…and then the flavour exploded. I'll never describe salad as boring again! The Cochranes aren't noted for their green fingers, but even I was impressed enough with the freshly picked produce to consider starting a little veggie patch in the garden.
Feeling a little peckish by now with all this talk of food, I deliberately moved on to Slimming World's stand, where I could see their local group leader, Caroline Gorry was dishing out health bars - I chose a Cranberry one, which was delicious. My son obviously thought so too – after asking for a nibble he slunk off with it and that was the last I saw of it. Who needs slimming groups when you have a permanently hungry six-year-old?
Slimming World uses group support to help you achieve your target weight and claims that not only do you never need to be hungry, but that no food is banned! The local Slimming World group meets in the Sun Lounge of the Memorial Hall at 10.00am and 7.00pm every Wednesday.
Wincanton Town Youth Football Club had a stand and was encouraging children to get active. From as young as three, the club welcomes young players to have a go and meet new friends. Training for Under 8s and Under 9s (and the girls' team) takes place on a Friday evening at Wincanton Sports Ground. Other age groups train at different times and matches take place at the weekend.
I then met with Lucy White, who with partner Danielle Taylor, runs Essence of Beauty, a new salon in Wincanton High Street providing an extraordinary range of relaxing beauty treatments. With my eye fixed firmly on the leaflets describing relaxing massages and manicures, I immediately started to drop broad hints to my husband about it being my birthday next month. I think they fell on deaf ears.
It was good to see that our emotional well-being was also catered for at the event. The Samaritans were represented, as was The Local Service Team, a Somerset County Council project which focuses on the issues affecting young people. The team offers support and guidance, fun activities and informal learning opportunities. They have applied to Wincanton Town Council to use the Red Cross Building as a Youth Club.
Jane Grimes is a massage therapist specialising in the Bowen Technique, a gentle and relaxing hands-on technique which is suitable for adults and children. Jane uses her thumbs and fingers to make a series of precise, rolling-type moves over muscle. Practically any problem can be treated with the Bowen Technique, but it is commonly used for back and neck pain, knee problems, sports injuries, migraines and respiratory problems, to name but a few.
Some people use the technique as a means of stress management and I as watched the demonstration progress, I could see why: if the patient Jane was demonstrating on wasn't already asleep, he wasn't far off. With a pang of envy, I tiptoed away and left them to it...
King Arthurs's had given plenty of thought to balancing the event, with both traditional and alternative exhibitors representing a wide spectrum of the health and fitness industry.
The school has just gained the Healthy Schools Plus Award and a Steering Group is to be formed to combat issues such as child obesity, smoking, health and hygiene. King Arthur's is obviously very keen on this subject, as this Health Awareness Day has shown. There were too many exhibitors to mention here, but they all did a great job and I hope their various businesses benefit from the interest they generated amongst the visitors.
Other activities being demonstrated during the event were children's martial arts (left), Tae Kwon Do, ladies hockey, cycle spin classes (right) and street soccer.
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