July 9, 2014

Pan-American Health Organization Urges Adventists to Share Health Expertise

A senior public health official appealed to the Seventh-day
Adventist Church on Tuesday to share its expertise on healthy lifestyles with
the rest of the world, saying at a conference that the health of the world’s
population was going from bad to worse.

World church President Ted N.C. Wilson said the church would
press ahead with plans to expand its comprehensive health ministry to every
Adventist church, and he insisted on starting with the well-being of the 1,150 people in the audience, asking them to stand up and stretch.

<strong>CALL TO SHARE:</strong> Anselm Hennis, a senior official with the Pan-American Health Organization, says, “I am very impressed with the outreach, with the advocacy, with the mission, of your church." Photo credit: Ansel Oliver / ANN

Anselm Hennis, director of the department of
non-communicable diseases and mental health at the Pan-American Health
Organization, made his appeal at the opening of the second Global Conference on
Health and Lifestyle in Geneva, Switzerland.

Hennis cited two internationally recognized Adventist
studies that concluded that vegetarians have a lower risk of dying of
non-communicative diseases.

“If you eat more vegetables,
you will have a lower risk of dying prematurely,” he said.

Hennis, who works for the Americas branch of the World
Health Organization, painted a grim picture of deteriorating global health,
particularly among low- and medium-income groups, which he said are most prone
to non-communicative diseases like heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, and diabetes.

“We are sitting on an evolving epidemic on all levels,” he
said.

The theme of the conference
is non-communicable diseases, which cannot be passed from person to person and
are caused by poor diet, tobacco, alcohol, and a lack of exercise.

Government Regulations Not Enough

Hennis said Mexico passed the U.S. as the “fattest country
in the world” last year. He added that it was no coincidence that Mexicans are
the world’s biggest consumers of sugary beverages, drinking an average of 163
liters per person annually compared to U.S. citizens in second place at 118
liters.

But Mexico is taking the global lead in adopting laws meant
to regulate better health, introducing an 8 percent tax on junk food and a 1
peso per liter tax on soft drinks in January 2014, he said. The 1 peso tax
alone is expected to reduce soft drink consumption by 5 percent.

Hennis said, however, that government regulations were not
enough. He applauded an agreement signed between his organization and the
Seventh-day Adventist Church three years ago to combat non-communicative diseases and urged
Adventists on Tuesday to share their knowledge in their communities.

“I am very impressed with the outreach, with the advocacy, with
the mission, of your church,” he said. “I think we need to come to you to learn
how we can do a better job at trying to change lives, making the healthy
choice, the better choice.”

Wilson Encourages by Example

Wilson, the church president, said in a plenary speech that
Adventists needed to not only share information about healthy living but also
incorporate healthy choices in their own lives. As if to illustrate the point,
he invited participants to stand and stretch their arms with him when he took
the stage two hours into the conference.

“We are not a Pentecostal meeting, but we really need good
health,” Wilson said to audience laughter.

Later in his remarks, Wilson offered a personal example of
how he sought to find ways to exercise, saying that he and his wife, Nancy, had
walked the 17 minutes from their hotel to the conference venue that morning.

“It was a great walk,” he said.

In a sign of the importance that Wilson has placed on the
conference, he is staying in Geneva until its conclusion on Sabbath, July 12,
when he will deliver a sermon.

Wilson urged attendees to step up efforts to implement “comprehensive
health ministry,” a wholistic approach that blends information about health and
Jesus to meet people’s physical and spiritual needs.

“Comprehensive health ministry is as important a part of the
Seventh-day Adventist Church as the right arm is to the body,” Wilson said.

A key goal of the conference is to lay the groundwork for the creation of community health centers in every
Adventist church worldwide. Conference organizers are providing attendees, a
mixture of church leaders and influential laypeople, with information meant to
allow them to implement wellness programs back home.

rsz 14417119510 eeac598308 oTIME TO STRETCH: World church President Ted N.C. Wilson leading conference participants in stretching in Geneva on Tuesday, July 8, 2014. Photo credit: Ansel Oliver / ANN">

Participants Impressed, Surprised

Audience members appeared to be relishing the opportunity to
learn from leading health and church officials.

“This is a very good conference,” said Mikalai Patsukevich,
a senior Adventist leader from Belarus.“It was good to hear Elder Wilson explain how we can share the gospel
through a healthy lifestyle.”

Rodolfo Celestial, a private farmer from Malaybalay,
Philippines, said he was impressed with speakers’ comments on the benefits of
vegetarianism and looked forward to learning how to share them with children at
his home church.

At least one participant was left stunned. “I was so
surprised to see that Mexico and the United States are the fattest countries in
the world,” said Noldy Sakul, president of the East Indonesia Union Conference.

In his speech, Wilson underscored that Adventists had an
obligation to not only share information about health but also about Jesus.

“Don’t get wrapped up in thinking that you are going to go
to heaven because you are a vegan,” he said.


Other conference highlights:

David Williams, an Adventist professor of public health and
sociology at Harvard University, urged conference attendees not to worry about
the seemingly overambitious goal of creating a community
health center in every church, saying Adventists have a 120-year-old model that
they can follow.

“What does a comprehensive
health ministry look like?” he said in a plenary speech.

Williams pointed to a program set up by pioneering Adventist
doctor John Harvey Kellogg in Chicago in 1893 that saw the city’s impoverished
residents treated by doctors-in-training from an Adventist school in Michigan. The initiative also included a homeless shelter, a soup
kitchen with low-cost meals, employment for those who could not afford the
meals, and a halfway house for prostitutes.

Kellogg’s efforts won high praise from one of the leading
public health officials of his day, Williams said.


Niels-Erik Andreasen, president of Andrews University,
announced that the school was launching a healthy lifestyle initiate that
includes a new health and wellness center and a full-time staffer to improve
the health of students.

Andreasen said a search was under way to hire a “wellness
champion.”

He said the health and wellness center would open in a few
years at a prominent location at the front of the campus in Berrien Springs, Michigan,
and offer fitness equipment and lecture halls.

The new program will be funded largely by the university’s
endowment.

Conference organizer Peter Landless, head of the church’s
Health Ministries, was clearly impressed with the presentation.

“This will be a model for all schools of all denominations,”
he said.


Contact Adventist Review news editor Andrew McChesney at [email protected].
Twitter: @ARMcChesney


Related link

1,150 Adventists Descend on Geneva for Major Health Conference

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