GREENVILLE, N.C. — During the week, personal trainer Haywood Parker preaches physical fitness. In Sunday sermons, Bishop Haywood Parker doesn’t change that message.
“Obesity is plaguing America like never before,” says Parker, senior pastor of Truth Tabernacle Ministries. “This is a cultural issue, and the church has an obligation to respond to the issue.”
One way Parker’s church has sought to respond is through participating in the Prosper Project, a three-county initiative conducted by the Department of Public Health at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine. The project, launched in the summer of 2010, aims to wage a spiritual as well as a physical battle against diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
More than 500 members of a dozen primarily Black churches in Edgecombe, Duplin and Lenoir counties have been involved in Prosper, an acronym for “Preparing Ourselves for Spiritual and Physical Enrichment and Renewal.”
“To make a connection with people, it’s effective to work through their churches with people they know,” said Dr. Lloyd Novick, chairman of Brody’s department of public health and co-principal investigator of the project. “We believe that we’re going to be able to demonstrate that a faith-based project like this, working from churches, actually can be successful in impacting on these individuals’ health.”
Participants in the six-month project attend three sessions each month during which they weigh in and have their blood pressure and blood sugar levels checked. Groups meet at the church not only to learn about nutrition, physical activity and overall wellness but to study Bible passages pertaining to health. (The project’s motto comes from 3 John 1:2 “Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.”)
“Eastern North Carolina is known as the stroke belt but also the Bible belt, says Nancy Little, a clinical associate professor in the department of public health and co-principal investigator of the project. “We go to where the people are.
