Latinos taught healthy food and exercise

Lighter Latino food on the menu
Weekly class promotes more healthful recipes, exercise
By Jennifer Vigil Union-Tribune Staff Writer April 18, 2009

CITY HEIGHTS — Little Leslie Cota walked into the healthful cooking class her mother was attending, munching on a sweet treat.

The teacher, Racheal Alba Araujo, wasn't impressed with the child's dietary choice, but she doesn't preach. She knows it won't work, particularly on a 4-year-old. She opted for subtlety instead, lifting her hand to wag her index and middle fingers in the air, the universal sign for walking.

Leslie, still clutching her chocolate, got the point. “Caminando,” she said.

“Si, caminando,” Araujo repeated.

Araujo builds on that lesson for the moms and dads in her City Heights classroom, pushing them to link the health benefits of exercise with better eating habits. If they get moving, she tells them, and prepare their favorite dishes in less fattening ways, they can improve their health and dramatically reduce the risk of many diseases.

It's a common-sense message, but for Latinos struggling to make ends meet in San Diego, reducing fat and increasing physical activity isn't always the first priority. Araujo works to overcome those and other barriers at the Friday classes she leads at the Scripps City Heights Wellness Center.

“We teach 'everything in moderation,' ” Araujo said. “We promote change. We never say, 'no.' I think that's the success of the program.”

She also holds herself up as Exhibit No. 1: Araujo, who has Type 2 diabetes, once weighed more than 400 pounds. She's now half that size.

“It makes me very credible and very real,” she said. “I want to manage my diabetes.”

It wasn't always that way. Her mother died of complications from the disease. All four of her siblings also got diabetes, a condition that causes the body to fail to properly process sugar and carbohydrates.

Poor diet and a family history of the disease are prime risk factors for Type 2 diabetes. The health educator is aware she should have known better.

“I had all the tools,” she said. “I didn't know how to use them.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leading cause of death among Latinos is heart disease. Diabetes also is in the top 10. The disease is twice as common among Mexicans and Puerto Rican adults as whites.

Latinos also lack health insurance in greater numbers than the general population, according to federal statistics, making them less likely to seek preventive treatment.

Scripps, in partnership with another community clinic, La Maestra, received funding for the classes from two private foundations. It's unclear if they will continue, though, because the grants expire in June.

Araujo said her main message can be split into four parts – serving smaller portions, modifying fat-filled recipes, incorporating more fruits and vegetables into meals and exercising.

The toughest lesson to impart? Making time to work out, Araujo said, especially because many of her students don't have cars. They think walking their children to school or going to the store will suffice.

“They assume they're already doing enough,” the Escondido resident said.

At a recent class, Araujo and her students prepared broccoli salad. Araujo made a bowlful, with red onions, cheese, raisins and a mix of mayonnaise and yogurt, ahead of time. But she also laid the ingredients out on the counter to allow the class to assemble the dish too.

“If they open it, taste it, smell it, they're more apt to buy it,” Araujo said.

Leslie's mother, Patricia Cota, 26, was responsible for the raisins, while Liliana McBroom, 28, who has grown to like salads because of the class, handed off the broccoli to be blanched. Araujo told the class doing so gives the vegetable a vivid green cast that makes it appear more appetizing.

The teacher also emphasizes how to cut the fat out of Latin favorites.

To improve upon frijoles, pinto beans often laden with lard, she advises her students to mix in heated oil flavored with garlic. Preparing posole, a soup, with more protein, preferably chicken, improves the dish's nutritional value.

Some students ate as many as a dozen tortillas a meal, Araujo said. She recommends three. She also tells them to make tamales much smaller.

Her lessons are taking hold. The consistency of soya, or soy, whether in milk or tofu, once grossed out the class. Yet within weeks the students asked Araujo to find a recipe for ceviche – usually made with fish, which can be costly – that includes tofu.

The children are adapting as well, which Araujo said is crucial if families are to make changes. Leslie, who started the class with candy, ended it with broccoli, as did Hector, her 2-year-old brother. None of the children refused the vegetables – McBroom's son Bradley, 4, ate them too.

Luis Frias, 45, is a convert. Once concerned about diabetes, he has lost weight during the class and limited his intake of sugary sodas. Eating healthier saves him money because he no longer pays $6 or $7 for big burritos.

“We spend more money fixing things in the traditional Latino way,” Frias said.

Jennifer Vigil: (619) 718-5069; jennifer.vigil@uniontrib.com