“It’s a Lifestyle”

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March 10, 2010

Kevin Jones Jacksonville Progress The Jacksonville Daily Progress Wed Mar 10, 2010, 09:51 PM CST

JACKSONVILLE —

If you were to see sixteen year old Brian Morales around town any day of the week you would probably never take a second glance.

He is a healthy, fun loving individual who looks like any other ordinary teenage young man. However, at the age of fourteen Morales was in much worse shape.

Diagnosed with kidney failure it took a lot of effort, determination and hard work on his part to be as healthy as he is today. Receiving a kidney transplant donated by his father Morales began to recover and thanks to a Health and Fitness initiative started at Jacksonville’s own Trinity Mother Frances Health and Fitness center, the outlook for Morales is much better today.

“It’s a lifestyle” is a program in its third year of operation here in Jacksonville started by Fitness Coordinator Casey Lusk of Trinity Mother Frances.

The program was started because of the rising childhood obesity epidemic and TMFHS-Jacksonville wanted to help. The program is selective, only choosing twenty young participants each semester and each student selected is required to go through an application process with Mother Frances which includes a student submitted essay as well as a personal interview with the children and their families.

Once accepted into the program, each student after being cleared by their family physician, is trained intensely in a group setting for twelve weeks, Monday through Thursday from 4:30 to 5:30 P.M. and on Saturday mornings at 10:00 A.M. “through the years that the program has been running, we have seen great strides by individual students as well as with the program as a whole.” Said Coordinator Casey Lusk.

“Our first year of the program we saw about an eighty pound weightloss total from the student participants as well as building up physical traits such as muscle mass and even psychological traits such as improvements in self body image and self esteem.”

As is with many private health and fitness programs there is usually quite a hefty cost that comes along with all the benefits of the training.

This problem has been solved for the program with inter-organizational funding provided by the Trinity Mother Frances foundation.

Though the program is centralized in the Jacksonville location of the Trinity Mother Frances Health System, the hope for the program is to grow throughout the system as it begins to grow and larger strides begin to take place.

Morales and the rest of the program participants are getting stronger and improving each week. One his time away from the gym, Morales is a student at Jacksonville Middle School and said that english and reading are his favorite subjects and he also likes music.

The city of Jacksonville has seen many benefits from this program and the staff at Trinity Mother Frances are very dedicated to keeping the program alive and seeing the program participants make strides to accomplish personal fitness goals.

Morales stays focused on his personal fitness goal and hopes that his story can be an inspiration to someone wanting to become more physically active and healthy.

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