By Damien Guzman
Plenty of health setups filled ELAC’s Fine Arts complex courtyard in order to provide new options to Elans and those within the community.
The health fair gave less fortunate people without health insurance a chance to check blood levels, body fat percentages and offered tips on staying healthy for free.
“This event is to promote health and raise awareness and is connected to diabetes foundations,” Galen Cheng, nursing student, said.
The most popular display for attendance was the NutriShop presentation.
The manager from one of the shops showed crowds of nurses and others in attendance different protein shakes and fat-burning juices. He passed out samples of every product he presented during the demonstration.
“It’s free testing. This is to get some information on what’s going on in your body,” Andrew Fernandez, manager of the NutriShop, said.
Another display at the fair that dealt with juicing products that create great health benefits was Herbs of Mexico.
This set-up dealt more with flax seeds, chia seeds and other natural herbs rather than protein and energy-based powders. Bystanders’ interests were kept with samples thanks to the fresh flavors given out at the Herbs of Mexico display.
The Respiratory Therapy Department focused its presentation on showing people good and bad lungs, caused mostly by smoking.
“Our main thing is in the hospital setting. We actually help keep people alive by helping them breathe that need to be on ventilators, people with asthma, and run tests on patients,” ELAC student Jennifer Burke, Respiratory Therapy Department representative, said.
Using pig lungs, they showed healthy lungs and some that were lungs badly damaged. They were being pumped by a machine to show how they work in the body. The bad lungs were black and contained a small tumor
Demonstrators let people put gloves on and feel each of the lungs.
Another section in the event was the body fat index. Nurses at this station used a machine to measure body fat. They input the height, age and weight to get results on a person’s body fat.
After the percentages appeared on the machine’s screen, they showed charts that defined if the person was healthy or non-healthy.
To attract a younger audience, a clown and a face-painting booth that younger kids were brought to entertain children.
Other displays at the event included LA Fitness, East LA Pregnancy Center, St. Vincent Medical Center and Santa Rosa Health Care Center.
Although there was more than a hundred people in attendance, instructors wanted a bigger turn out .
They understood that it was the first time the event took place at ELAC and was promoted with short notice.
“I think we would have had a better turn out if we would have had more time to promote it, but it was the first year too,” Nursing Instructor Martha Garcia said.