Wednesday 18th April 2018

Welcome to episode 10 of our podcast where we reflect on the effectiveness of fitness parties in getting people fit and active.

Welcome back to our gardening and health blog series where we’ve been taking you on a personal journey as we explore the health and wellbeing benefits of gardening for ourselves. Today, Abi Begho is back and this time she’s sharing her experience of growing okra and why she thinks okras are the stars of the show.

Growing okra plants has been fantastic. So far, they have been the star of the show! They seem to absolutely love the hot climate here in St Kitts and have really thrived producing lots and lots of okra pods. We have had so much okra that we ran out of okra recipes and weren’t sure what to do with them – we have made gumbo (multiple times), crispy okra (a few variations), stewed okra and tomatoes (many times), Nigerian okra stew, okra in scrambled eggs (!) and okra in various salads. It’s been a fun experience.

Let’s Start at the Beginning: What is Okra?

Okra also called okro, ochro and ladies fingers is a popular vegetable in West Africa, India and the Southern States of the US. It is a very hardy plant being heat and drought tolerant and as you guessed, it is a tropical plant and doesn’t do well in cold temperatures.

It belongs to the mallow family of plants making it a close relation to the hibiscus (it was hard to believe this until I saw the okra flower myself), cotton and cacao, just to name a few of its cousins.

There are many varieties of okra, I read somewhere there are thousands (who knew! I am learning so much from gardening). Some of the popular varieties of okra are Clemson Spineless,  Red Burgundy, Burgundy, Emerald and Cajun Delight.

Okra is a healthy, tasty addition to your diet containing vitamin B, vitamin C, folic acid, potassium and calcium. It is also very high in fibre.

How I Got Started Growing Okra

We love okra so it was one of the first things on my list of things to grow in our garden.

Having read that there are so many varieties of okra, I was a bit confused and unsure about what variety of okra to grow. So I consulted with my trusty friend, YouTube, and the consensus was that Clemson Spineless was a good variety to start with.  So, I headed to the shop and bought a packet of seeds and planted several of them  in a container.

I was shocked by how quickly the seeds germinated. I expected them to germinate in 5-7 days, but just three days later I had little seedlings growing happily in my container.  I left them for a week or so and then transplanted them into the garden, being careful with the roots, as they are very delicate, and left them to do their thing. I just watered them every now and again and made sure they were in a nice sunny spot and I watched them grow.

Buds, Flowers and Okra Pods

About a month after I planted the seeds I noticed my very first okra buds. I literally squealed with delight when I saw them, it was so unexpected as was my squeal – my husband thought I was being attacked or something! Then three weeks later, the most beautiful okra flower appeared and then promptly disappeared within a couple of hours – if you blink you miss the beauty (Okra flowers only open for a few hours and then they close up  in preparation for okra pod formation). Two days after the flower appeared a tiny little okra pod had formed and then, voila, two days after that I had picked my first okra – yay!

Below you can see the progression from okra bud to okra pod.

In total I have 9 okra plants and for months they were serious okra producing machines! Like I mentioned earlier, we had so much okra we didn’t know what to do with them. It was great! And, I just have to mention how perfect the okras have been. I have never ever seen such good-looking okras and we used to buy okra all the time in the UK. Every okra I picked was beautifully formed, no defects and very tasty.

 As I type  the okra plants are 5 months old and sadly they are looking a bit tired, okra pod production has slowed down, their leaves have dropped and the plants don’t look as healthy as they did a few months ago. I think they are coming to the end of their lifespan or maybe they have some kind of fungal disease as I read they are supposed to keep producing for a really long time.  So, I have bought some new seeds and will be planting these soon.

Final Thoughts

I have really enjoyed growing (and eating!) okra. It has been pretty straightforward as okras are very low maintenance and, as I mentioned previously, very hardy,  so they have given me no problems whatsoever.

If you live in a warm climate I highly recommend you try growing okra and if you live in a cold country, you can still jump on board and grow them during the summer months.

WelI… that’s it for now. In my next blog I’ll be discussing my lovely little bell peppers. See you then and happy gardening!

If you want purchase some okra seeds, I recommend the Clemson Spineless, which is what I grew and had great success with. You can order some seeds from Amazon below

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If you missed our previous blogs you can read them using the links below

1. Improving Our Health and Wellbeing Through Gardening: An Introduction
2. Improving Our Health and Wellbeing Through Gardening: How I Got Started
3.  Improving Our Health and Wellbeing Through Gardening: Growing Tomatoes

In September, the World Cancer Research Fund published the latest data from their Continuous Update Project on cancer prevention highlighting what increases and decreases our risk of developing cancer.

Their summary is a very concise, easy-to-read booklet based on the latest evidence on risk factors for cancer. One of their main messages is that one third of the most common cancers could be prevented by a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight and being physically active.

Their summary is divided into three sections:

• Strong evidence on what increases cancer risk
• Strong evidence on what decreases cancer risk
• Cancer prevention recommendations

When looking at what increases cancer risk, factors such as being overweight or obese, consuming alcohol, processed meat and red meat are listed as well as a number of other factors. Whilst non-starchy vegetables, fruit,  physical activity, dietary fibre, wholegrain and a number of other factors are listed as reducing cancer risk.

The WCRF end their summary with a list of cancer prevention recommendations as follows:

• Be a healthy weight
• Move more
• Avoid high calorie foods and sugary drinks
• Enjoy more grains, veg and beans
• Limit red meat and processed meat
• Don’t drink alcohol
• Eat less salt
• Avoid mouldy grains and cereals
• Don’t rely on supplements, eat a healthy diet
• If you can, breastfeed your baby

WCRF Continuous Update Project is an ongoing initiative to review global research on cancer prevention focusing on how lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise and weight impact our risk of developing cancer.  Based on these findings the WCRF will update their Cancer Prevention Recommendations which they hope will provide the public, governments and charitable organisations with accurate information on how to reduce cancer risk.

For more information you can download the full summary below or visit the WCRF’s website.

The Healthy Caribbean Coalition published an excellent report on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and trade policy in the Caribbean. This briefing document discusses how trade policies affect the public’s health and what needs to be done to ensure that policies have a positive effect on the health of countries’ citizens.

The report clearly explains, with examples, how specific policies can influence our health. For example, low taxes on items like sugary drinks, alcohol, tobacco and processed foods lowers their cost enticing the public to purchase them. The consumption of these items, over time, increases our risk of developing non-communicable diseases such as  type 2 diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease. The report details how policies like this in the Caribbean have had a detrimental effect with families shifting from a traditional plant-based, home-made diet to a processed, meat-based diet.

The report states that the Caribbean shockingly has the highest mortality due to NCDs in the Americas,  the Caribbean has some of the highest rates of obesity and there are significant levels of tobacco use and binge drinking.  There is an urgent need to address these issues and exploring trade policies is just one strategy that can be introduced to improve the public’s health.

The Healthy Caribbean Coalition’s report explores policies around three main areas:

• Unhealthy/healthy food
• Alcohol
• Cigarettes

These recommendations are based on global approaches such as the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, the WHO strategy to reduce alcohol consumption and the ICN2 Framework for Action. The HCC’s recommendations for the Caribbean are illustrated below.

This report was an excellent, comprehensive, clear and informative report that gives concrete actions that can be taken to tackle NCDs through policy changes.

You can download the report below.

 

The Lake Foundation aims to improve the health and well-being of the black community and to achieve this general aim a core part of our work is to get the black community more active.

Exercise can be very intimidating for many people and thus we sought to explore various options on how we could get people active in a way that could be incorporated into everyday life and would ultimately be fun.

Cycling is an interesting option as it is very practical and can be introduced into a person’s life as a method of transport (commuting to work), as a leisure activity (exploring the local area) and as a form of structured exercise.

We began our work by teaming up with the Cycling Instructor in 2014 to run a short-term initiative of bikeability sessions aimed at the black community to teach basic cycling technique and improve confidence. We worked with the Cycling Instructor for two summers and this proved very popular with us having to extend the sessions beyond their initial four week period. With this in mind we decided to build on the popularity of these sessions and we ran a cycling club, with funding from Sport England, from February 2016 to April 2017.

The need for our project

5.3% of the UK’s black population has type two diabetes (versus 1.7% of the white population), 33% suffer from high blood pressure, (compared to 16% of white adults), black African women have been found to have the highest prevalence of obesity, the black community is twice as likely to suffer from a stroke, is twice as likely to develop prostate cancer, is 2-3 times more likely to develop fibroids and as a result of their increased risk of diabetes are at increased risk of developing heart disease. One of the key lifestyle factors that ties these conditions together is physical activity.

Research has shown that the risk of developing these conditions can be reduced significantly by being more physically active, but unfortunately studies have shown that over half of people from black and minority ethnic  (BME) groups do not take part in sports nor do they do any physical activity.

By increasing the number of BME people taking part in a sporting activity we can begin to address some of the health challenges that plague the black community, but we need to create better opportunities for the black community to take part in sports. To successfully achieve this we need to present the community with fun, engaging, practical and easily accessible sporting activities; cycling can do this.

According to TFL “BME groups, women, people from more deprived neighbourhoods, those with disabilities and older people are typically under-represented in cycling” and “the typical London cyclist is white, under 40 and male with a medium to high household income”. This means that there is a huge inequality in cycling but this creates a huge opportunity to introduce BME communities to cycling.

Through the bikeability courses we were able to show that if cycling is presented to members of the BME community without any barriers (bikes and helmets provided) they will happily take up this activity and easily meet the government’s recommended amount of physical activity.

To ensure that our BME community kept cycling beyond the short bikeability sessions we needed a sustainable long-term opportunity for them to cycle and our cycling club provided this.

Overview of the Cycling Club Project

Aims and Objectives

The aims of our cycling club project were to:

• Increase the number of people from a BME background who cycle regularly
• Improve attendees confidence in cycling
• Provide opportunities for members to develop in cycling
• Introduce the BME community to a fun and easy way to achieve the recommended amount of physical activity

We achieved the above by:

• Running two hour cycling sessions ever 2^nd and 4^th Saturday of the month
• Providing direction from experienced instructors and encouraging  members to take part in national and local cycling events
• Making each session engaging and encouraging members to develop good friendships within the group. Each cycling session involved fun routes that allowed members to discover the beauty of their local area, but also challenged members. We had socials to encourage relationships to be built that centred around cycling
• Ensuring that each session was definitely two hours so that members participated in a significant amount of physical activity.

Outcomes

Our project progressed well, the targeted number of participants for our project was 18 and we had 23 participants join our club over the 14 month period.

Outcome 1: Improved confidence in cycling

We hired trained experienced instructors from the organisation Cycling Instructor to lead sessions and provide participants with training on cycling technique. This included cycling in traffic, hand signals, making sure bikes are road worthy, cycling off-road and on-road and cycling up-hill. This meant that members were given a good foundation when it comes to proper cycling technique and this has helped improve their confidence.  Members completed feedback forms  and before joining the club 10% felt not confident at all, 30% felt a little confident, 20% felt confident and 20% felt very confident with cycling. A year after joining our club only 9% of members felt a little confident whilst 45% of members felt confident and 36% felt very confident,  with one member saying:

“I’m not a regular cyclist but it [the club] gives me confidence, particularly, on the roads”

Outcome 2: Provided opportunities for members to develop in cycling

Having sessions with experienced instructors helped develop the cycling skills of our club members and we also challenged members through extended 4 hour rides to Chislehurst Caves and the Olympic Stadium, and also several uphill routes. Additionally, we encouraged members to take part in local and national cycling events such as the Croydon Interfaith Cycle Ride, the Crystal Palace Road to Rio ride and others. One member of our group took part in the London to Brighton ride, which was the first time she had participated in such an event, she said:

“I barely could cycle very far but after a few months of cycling with the club I was able to cycle 20-23 miles” – Sam, Cycling Club Member

We asked members how much they feel their cycling technique has improved since joining the club and 45% said their technique had improved a lot, 36% said their technique improved somewhat, 9% said it improved a little and 9% said they didn’t know.

Outcome 3:  Introduced the BME community to cycling

The majority of people that attended our cycling club were from a BME background – 20 out of 23 were from a BME background, some of whom didn’t cycle regularly before joining our group. Before joining the group 18% had never cycled, 18% cycled once or twice a year, 27% cycled monthly, 27% cycled weekly and 9% cycled more than 5 days in a week. Through our club we have introduced cycling to some (18%) and the club ensured that the others engaged more regularly in cycling.

Some keys to success

Our project worked well due to the excellent freelance cycling instructors we hired who were very experienced and made each session very enjoyable. They found interesting routes each time, and the sessions were informative with members learning about cycling technique, so it was a good balance of fun, exercise and instruction.

Additionally we recruited a cycling coordinator who was very warm, friendly and encouraging this provided a really good atmosphere at each session. She ensured everything ran smoothly, being the point of contact for members and instructors and she worked well with the instructors to plan each route. She also organised socials for members which were well-attended and this gave members the opportunity to get to know each other. Importantly our coordinator was a member of the BME community and a keen cyclist.

Conclusion

Similar to the short bikeability courses we have been able to show that if cycling is presented to members of the BME community without any barriers (bikes and helmets provided) they will happily take up this activity and easily meet the government’s recommended amount of physical activity.

One important point to note is that the social aspect of the club was very important. We found that many club members didn’t cycle in-between sessions nor did they cycle when sessions were cancelled. When we probed further we found that members liked cycling as a group activity and valued the time spent with others. It would appear that our group of BME cyclists looked at cycling as more of a leisure activity rather than a method of transport or structured exercise. This suggests that to encourage more people from a BME background to cycle, projects that promote cycling for leisure rather than for commuting and exercise are more likely to appeal to the BME community; and these projects would need to be group activities that promote social interaction.

 

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We are very grateful to Sport England for funding this project and Cycling Instructor for their advice and support.

 

In this week’s blog our guest blogger, freelance journalist, Stacey Mensah, asks the question: ‘Are you getting enough exercise?’ and explores the barriers to exercise.

A poll has estimated that Britons spend twice as long on the toilet every week as they do exercising. With adults clocking up an average of three hours and nine minutes on their loos every week. This is serious business! Now to some this isn’t really going to mean anything and others frankly would not want to know. However, the reason why we’re making this comparison is to show the stark differences between the two activities and why we should be doing one of them for a lot longer. With the NHS recommending we perform 150 minutes’ worth of exercise each week, it makes me wonder what could be the possible barriers towards reaching this goal and if it in fact is enough.

Having lived in a cosmopolitan city for the majority of my years I can say with ease that exercising for 30 minutes a day is more than probable. And just remember that this is coming from a person who would choose the escalator over the stairs every single time! When the NHS is talking about moderate exercise this includes brisk walking – can I get a hallelujah! That sprint to catch the train, the light jog to the meeting and even the walk to pub for after work drinks’ count. But here is the dose of reality – the office treats, the regular intake of alcohol and your hate for vegetables isn’t doing you any favours. For those of us that like to indulge in the naughtier items on the menu we should also be willing to increase our doses of daily exercise.

But let’s be real that doesn’t always happen! UKactive has found that one of the biggest barriers to exercise were busy working lives which was followed by family commitments. At certain phases in my life I have found myself several days into my week without having worked out or done any significant bouts of exercise. When the delivery driver, waitress or restaurant manager knows me by name and order the I know it’s time to switch a few things up.

According to the organisation, a lack of exercise claims over 30,000 lives each year and costs the UK £20 billion. I know to some working professionals working out in groups or having someone to be accountable to helps them to stick to their goals. A personal trainer, a nutritionist or even just an active Instagram feed bulging with fitness pictures is enough for some. And it seems as though 41%* of 18 to 24-year-olds prefer using social media as a source of motivation, as it encourages them to head down to the gym.

Although there has been much attention in regards to young people and exercise, chief knowledge officer to the NHS, professor Sir Muir Gray offers a sentiment that we all need to be reminded of: “People often think exercise is only for young people, but older adults are the people who stand to gain most from the mental, social and physical benefits of being active”.

How many hours of exercise do you get every week? What challenges do you face? We would love to hear from you…

Croydon CCG in collaboration with Croydon Council are hosting a Healthy Weight workshop on July 26^th at 11am to 1pm.

It is being held at Bernard Weatherill  House on the Ground Floor in the Community Space rooms with lunch and refreshments provided.

The aim of the workshop is to raise awareness about healthy weight topics within Croydon and to invite stakeholders, patients, clinicians and front line staff, to talk about how we can build the best services for Croydon residents.

The workshop aims to cover the following topics;

• Healthy weight within Croydon
• Identify priorities to promote healthy weight
• Raising awareness of healthy weight initiatives within the community
• Gain feedback from Patients and Clinicians on current services and how we can improve them

You can book a place on EventBrite or by emailing mark.darocha@croydonccg.nhs.uk

The University of Northumbria would like to say a big thank you to everyone who took part in their survey. The survey is now closed and they are no longer collecting data.

Researchers from the Northumbria University are conducting a new piece of research that will investigate the advice that cancer patients are receiving about physical activity after their diagnosis. They will explore whether the advice given to patients is appropriate for them and their needs. The findings from this work will help inform the development of future interventions to try to optimise the nature of physical activity advice being given to people after a cancer diagnosis.

If you have experience with cancer, you can take part in this important piece of work by completing an online survey. The survey asks participants about their current health, their physical activity habits and about any physical activity advice they received. Most of the questions have multiple choice answers with only a couple asking for further details.

This research has been approved by an institutional research ethics committee. Participation in the survey is completely voluntary, and all answers people provide will be kept anonymous and so no one can be identified from any information they provide.

You can complete the survey here: https://goo.gl/forms/GaAK81TJVu877Tj93  and if you have any questions or would like any additional information please email us and we will contact the researchers on your behalf.

On Wednesday 10th May, we attended the second annual Elevate conference, an event that aimed to tackle the issue of inactivity in the UK and provide a forum for cross-sector debate on physical activity, health and wellbeing.

This conference included seminars, a tech lab, a stage area showcasing interesting projects and products, and there was also an exhibition area.

The seminar programme was divided into four streams: Physical Activity for Health and Wellbeing; Inclusivity – Creating an Active Nation;  Future Performance; and The Business of Physical Activity.

Inclusivity

We attended the sessions in the inclusivity stream which started with a keynote debate ‘Tackling Inactivity: What are the priorities?  On the panel of this debate was: Steve Gray, the Chief Executive of Nuffield Health, Steven Ward, Executive Director of UK Active, Professor Robert Copeland, from Sheffield Hallam University and Paul Tuohy, Chief Executive of Cycling UK.

This was a very interesting discussion with the panellists giving their view on where we need to focus our attention if we are to ensure that exercise is more inclusive.

Steve Gray from Nuffield Health  provided some good background stating that  1 in 3 people in the UK are inactive, 1 out of every  10 deaths  in the UK is linked to an inactive lifestyle and inactivity costs the NHS £1Billion. He also explained that we have more people living in urban areas and most people are very much dependent on technology which has led to a more sedentary lifestyle.

He explained that there is no single solution to address this issue but felt that firstly everyone needs to take accountability and that includes the government, businesses and individuals. He also explored the fact that exercise needs to be more accessible practically (made more affordable, easy to fit into a person’s day) and emotionally (everyone needs to feel that they can do it). Finally he also discussed the fact that we need to look at new approaches that are bespoke, suit the individual and are holistic, so they go beyond just the physical.

It was also interesting to hear from Steve Ward from UK Active who explained that their work focuses on communicating the message that it doesn’t matter how long you move for just as long as you move. This is a simple message that makes exercise less daunting.

One of their main priorities is getting more children and young people active as we currently have the most inactive children compared to  previous  generations.

One area they are working on is making sure that children keep active during the summer holidays. He explained that during term time children tend to be very active but once they go on holiday all physical activity ceases.

Another focus area for them is targeting workplaces and ensuring that businesses have a health and wellbeing offer for their staff.

Paul Tuohy also provided some useful insight explaining that 90% of people in the UK own a bike but only 2% of people commute to work or school regularly. The challenge is how to get people from good intentions to action. He also explained that exercise needs to be made simple and people need to get away from the artificial idea that to be fit they need to be a member of the gym. With regards to cycling, he felt that there was a need to normalise cycling rather than feeding the idea that it is an elite sport. People need to see cycling as fun and something they can do everyday.

Engaging with the  least active

We also really found the seminar session on addressing the least active very interesting. This focused on projects that have explored the motivations, attitudes and lifestyles of the most inactive people.

We first heard from Barry Horn from the English Federation of Disability Sport. He spoke about their project Get Out Get Active which is a sport and active recreation project for people with a disability. He explained the need for the project – people with a disability are the single most inactive people in the nation. He stated that their project looked at reaching inactive groups through outreach, engagement and effective marketing and a major priority for them was ensuring sustainability – making disabled people active for life.

As part of their project they explored what disabled people wanted from an exercise program and 64% wanted to take part in physical activity and sport with non-disabled people, they didn’t want to be excluded.

They have also developed some key principles for getting people active – drive awareness, engage the audience and offer support and reassurance.

In this session we also heard from Age UK about how they are getting the elderly more active and the Women’s Sport Trust on the work they’re doing with girls and women.  We were particularly interested in the presentation by Anun King from Sporting Equals about exercise and ethnicity.  He showed data that looked a physical activity and participation in different ethnic groups and this suggested that black and Asian women were the least active.  He explained that some of the barriers to participation were cultural, attitudes to exercise,  socio-economic and organisational.  To address this Sporting Equals have implemented a number of project including a faith centre model. This focused on people from an Asian background. Anun explained there were a number of benefits of working with faith based organisations, these include their large footfall and they have indoor and outdoor facilities. He discussed other projects which included their cultural events model, community sport zones and ethnic minority media work.

Great day out

This was a really busy day that we thoroughly enjoyed it. We attended so many presentations but just wanted to highlight a few interesting ones in this blog. Other projects that you may find interesting that we learnt about at Elevate were:

• Working with disadvantage communities to remove barriers to participation and get children and young people active
• WHO HEAT Tool
• Tackling inequalities and behaviour change in Birmingham

You can find out more about Elevate on their website and look out for the next event in May 2018.

 

It can be really hard fitting in the recommended amount of physical activity (150 minutes a week) into our day-to-day routine and even when we do manage to find the time, let’s be honest, exercise can be really dull!

Many times we start exercising with great intentions, but alas we lose motivation within a few weeks as it’s just not fun. For any kind of exercise plan to be effective, we have to commit to it, be persistent and push through the pain, but this can only be achieved if we’re enjoying the activity we’re taking part in. An exercise routine that’s fun has a better chance of long-term success, particularly if it is group exercise. Fun and a sense of camaraderie gets you through the pain, cold mornings and rainy days that may stop you from achieving your physical activity goals.

If you want to get fit and active this year, the key is to find something that you love doing. Now, we all  like a good party, so if you can combine exercise with a party feel, then you’ll definitely commit to that, right?

So, today we decided to test out a class on your behalf (AfroFit) and we are so sure you’re going to love it. AfroFit is a new class at the Eve and Grace Wellness Centre in Battersea.

The class was led by the very elegant and friendly Rebecca Adebiyi from Afrofit and Afrotales, a new organisation that has two elements to it: African-inspired cardio workouts for adults and children and African-inspired story and drama sessions for children aged 2 to 6.

Today was the launch of the class and we started with getting ourselves familiar with Afro Beat music and moves. For 60 minutes we worked our way through a dance routine that worked every part of our body. We got our hips moving,  arms waving, legs tapping, necks popping and bodies waving,  and we were smiling for the entire 60 minutes (it was fuuun!!). There was also a freestyle session where we got to show off our favourite moves, in our own unique style.

Rebecca was a great, patient teacher and by the end of the session we were looking like professional dancers :-),  but importantly we got a good full-body workout. It was wonderful to attend a class that uses African culture to get us active in a fun way that we could truly relate to.

If you’re looking to get more active this year, then we highly recommend this class. AfoFit takes place every Saturday at 1:30pm.

You can find out more about this class on the Eve and Grace Wellness Centre’s website. Whilst on their website you can check out all the other great classes at the centre.  We’re sure you’ll find a number of classes that you’ll like. Next we’ll be trying out the Mash It Up Dancercise class, an authentic Jamaican dancehall and fitness class.