Nursing students from Polk State College are teaming up with a health clinic in Winter Haven to help people lose weight.

  • Nursing student Adriana Shadrick fought obesity with diet and exercise
  • Shadrick and other students created innovative workout plan
  • Clinic offering class built around workout plan

Bad news from a doctor inspired Polk State Nursing student Adriana Shadrick to get into shape.

“When the doctor told me I was overweight, or at 239 pounds told me that I was diabetic and he wanted to put me on all this medication, I thought don’t want to do that,” explained Adriana Shadrick.
 
Instead, she worked out more and ate less. It paid off. She lost 30 pounds in three months.  

“As the weight starting coming off, I was able to move more because it was more comfortable, so I started walking a lot more,” Shadrick said.

But Adriana knows it’s not that easy for others who are morbidly obese.

“For a lot of people, it’s just hard to move. They can’t walk down to the mailbox to get their mail,” said Shadrick.  

This inspired Adriana to work with other nursing students at Polk State to help people who are obese lose weight. Together, they created a work out plan using a chair.

The students then partnered with the Haley Center Medical Clinic, which was looking to offer this type of class.  The Haley Center provides free primary health care to those who do not have medical insurance and whose household income is 200 percent above the federal poverty level or below.

The group is working hard to recruit participants. The first chair exercise class is set for July 12. The class is free.

The clinic’s director, Donna Armes, said the classes are much needed, considering more than 300 of her patients are obese, meaning their body mass index was over 30.  Armes learned this information after a Kaplan University Public Health student conducted a study, sampling 633 of the clinic’s patients for a research project.

"I see my patients suffer. They can’t move. They’re miserable. Their blood pressures are out of control. They’re becoming diabetics,” said Donna Armes. “They're losing their abilities to live because of the disease process, and the foundation is their obesity. "  

“If we teach them to move in their chair, and get a more "cardio" workout, move their joints, it will help improve their mobility, and drop their weight,” Shadrick said.

She hopes the class will also help patients get into better shape and eventually provide them the opportunity to walk more, and live healthier lifestyles.

For more information, contact The Haley Center at 863-299-6562.