On Milwaukee’s South Facet, Lideres por la Salud helps Latino Milwaukeeans stroll towards a more healthy future.
Lideres por la Salud, which suggests leaders of well being in English, is a health-focused strolling group that meets weekly for walks and discussions on subjects associated to vitamin and life-style.
The group hopes to advertise well being and wellness within the Latino neighborhood via schooling and by advocating for entry to nutritious meals and secure bodily actions like stretching, strolling and driving bikes.
In response to information from the Wisconsin Division of Well being Providers, roughly two-thirds of Hispanic/Latino adults in Wisconsin are obese or overweight.
These statistics spotlight the pressing want for health-based initiatives like Lideres por la Salud, stated Patricia Luevano, organizer of the strolling group.
Luevano can be a neighborhood organizer at Sixteenth Road Neighborhood Well being Facilities and an advocate for well being, particularly in the case of her fellow Latino Milwaukeeans.
“The well being of our neighborhood is getting worse, and we try to alter that,” Luevano stated.
She believes that unhealthy consuming habits and sedentary life are contributing to general poorer well being outcomes, like weight problems, hypertension and diabetes for Latinos.
Mobilizing the neighborhood
Fueled by a want for solutions, Luevano began the Lideres strolling membership 10 years in the past and has been strolling since.
She stated the group takes a holistic method to well being by stressing the significance of wholesome consuming habits and an lively life-style.
The group even takes journeys to the grocery retailer to teach and encourage wholesome grocery buying amongst its members.
“Our job is to mobilize the neighborhood by main as examples,” Luevano stated
Milwaukee County Supervisor Juan Miguel Martinez, who represents the twelfth District, is a powerful supporter of Lideres por la Salud. He believes the group not solely advocates for Latino well being, but in addition is making parks, like Mitchell Park, safer and extra enticing for others to make use of.
“They’re doing one thing within the neighborhood (Clarke Sq.) that nobody else is doing,” Martinez stated in regards to the group’s potential to get individuals strolling in public inexperienced areas like Mitchell Park.
Making a ‘robust and wholesome neighborhood’
Maria Beltran is a member of the group and soon-to-be chief of an upcoming senior strolling group sponsored by Lideres por la Salud and the United Neighborhood Heart, 1028 S. ninth St.
Beltran witnessed how her mom’s mobility points hindered her potential to play together with her grandson. She stated she hopes to keep away from that future for herself.
“We’re right here to create a powerful and wholesome neighborhood, and that may begin simply by strolling,” Beltran stated.
The advantages of strolling are supported by analysis from the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, or NIH, which emphasizes the function of strolling in decreasing the danger of power situations similar to coronary heart illness, diabetes and weight problems.
Strolling additionally improves psychological well-being by assuaging stress and anxiousness and is an accessible and efficient type of train for people of all ages, based on the NIH.
Luevano invitations anybody trying to enhance their well being and construct neighborhood, to offer her strolling group a strive.
“Come stroll with us. Strive it out and really feel higher about your well being,” she stated.
How one can become involved
The group meets from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. each Saturday via April 27. It meets on the Mitchell Park Domes car parking zone, 524 S. Layton Blvd., and walks 60 minutes of the Hank Aaron State Path. All ages are welcome to affix without spending a dime.
Senior strolling days shall be from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Wednesdays from June 5 via July 25, at Walker Sq. Park, 1031 S. ninth St, in entrance of United Neighborhood Heart, situated at 1028 S. ninth St.
For extra data, together with strolling schedules, city candlelight hikes and well being lessons, try Lideres por la Salud’s Fb web page.