Fwd: Black Colleges encourages students to Kick the Meat Habit!

October 26, 2005

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 15:04:50 -0400"AnimalConcerns.org" (US-va) Black colleges step into battle of bulgeNORFOLK, Va. - As students talk over the thump of rapper Chingy's"Right Thurr," Tina Carroll stands in a corner of the universitydining hall deliberating.Piled in front of her are sliced carrots, peas and steaming squashchunks. Nearby, breaded chicken patties fan out like meaty playingcards, and french fries glisten in fat-laden glory....Predominantly black colleges like Norfolk State University arestepping in, rolling out veggie-heavy menus, building walking trailsand even launching campus-wide weight loss contests. Their aim: tocurb the ballooning of black America by targeting the next generation....At Norfolk State, campus health experts will teach students how togauge their weight by calculating their body-mass index and to chartweight loss through

shrinking jean sizes rather than dreadedweigh-ins.In dining halls, monthly theme nights highlight new kinds of fruitsand vegetables, while "PHAT stations" across campus let students checktheir blood pressure and heart rates....For one, Anderson said they're up against decades of culturaltradition that emphasize pig's feet, chitlins and other soul foodstaples doctors say just aren't healthy.Combine that with a sense of invincibility and you get studentspicking fried chicken over veggie burgers, he said...."When I got to college, it went from two meals a day to three mealsplus snacks," said Carroll, who estimates that all of her six closestfriends are over their ideal weights.Now she tends to eat on the run, avoiding the square meal andvegetarian options offered in campus cafeterias in favor ofgrab-and-go sandwiches.She joined the health challenge in hopes of dropping 30 pounds andreaching her

ideal of "thick" - that is, thin, but with the strategiccurves once praised in the '90s rap classic "Baby Got Back."...ON THE NETNational Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education:http://www.nafeo.orgOffice of Minority Health: http://www.omhrc.gov/omhrc/Norfolk State University: http://www.nsu.edu--full story:http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/nation/12978927.htm----- http://www.animalconcerns.org/ -----More News Headlines -- RSS Feed!New Links -- Archive of 100 recent links!Events, E-Mail Lists, Jobs, Organizations, and ForumsSEARCH for the item on Animalconcerns.org!

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