and better productsmean more money. something we canall use, right? especially one couple anthonyand janell edwards. living in one of thepoorest and most obese places in america, theedwards have a plan. thanks! this isfayette, mississippi the county seat ofjefferson county.
home to justover 2,000 people this is a place of greathistory and also one of great poverty. and it's also one of thefattest places in america. according tofederal statistics, almost half the population ofjefferson county is obese. not overweight, obese. but that statisticwon't be a reality for much longer ifone fayette couple
has anythingto say about it. obesity is abig issue here. meet janell edwards. she and her husbandanthony are the brains and, more importantly,the heart behind a program called fat to fit based inmississippi's fattest county. fat to fit is a programwhere we are just trying to mobilize andencourage the residents of jefferson countyto become fat to fit.
and fat to fit is aprogram where we're offering incentiveand we weigh in, we assess, wetake measurements, we walk. we've developed walkgroups and things of that nature. dr. deshazo and thesesmall baby steps are designed to makea big difference. janell's husband, anthony,knows what he'd like
to see happen. if we could get 10% ofthe population to lose or to get healthier, thatwould be an awesome dream, if we couldaffect just 10%. dr. deshazo the programis the brainchild of janell and anthony, bothdriven for different reasons. family is big here andthe reason janell actually lives in fayette. i married into a greatfamily here from fayette,
jefferson county. i tell peoplethis and they laugh. in my family, either you'retall or you're wide. so unfortunately, we gotthe height and the width. we come from somehealthy eaters. and i tell people thatwhen you look at us and it's so funny to me thatwhen i would and now that i know i'm morbidly obese,but whenever i go take a physical the doctorwould always say man,
your bloodpressure is good, everything looks great. but in my head i'm healthybecause the doctor said i'm not strugglingwith no health issues, but the scale tellsme different and the way i feeltells me different. dr. deshazo it's alifestyle they were both stuck in along with justabout every other person in their home county.
but both anthony andjanell can tell you the moment they knewthings had to change. be careful who you letpeople take your picture. we had no idea. we had been working hardthat day and i'll never forget it. we stopped to get somewater and some ice and somethingto eat. joe was the last personto make it to the truck
and the guy was like letme take your picture. and he took joe's picture. joe smiled and we didn'tthink nothing of it. but a coupleof days later, he started to getphone calls and they were saying, man you'reon the front page of the clarion-ledger. at the time, we hadno idea that the guy was doing a story aboutjefferson county
being thefattest county. we just laughed it off, wereally didnt really think nothing of it until theydid a story on us on cbs channel 12, i believe. they did a storyand then it hit us. it hit me like wow. we in bad, we're reallyin a bad situation in jefferson ocunty. and here itis, my brother
is the poster boyfor jefferson county. it was amazingto see myself in this news article. as i saw this picture,i knew it was a problem,like "man are they considered me asthe fattest guy in jefferson county." it took a toll on me. i knew then that i had todo something for myself.
dr. deshazo and whatjospeh started doing was changing his life. he started movingmore, eating less eating in morehealthy ways and he's hadserious results. so far, losingover 80 pounds. but, joseph hasmore big plans. my goal is i wantto see 300 pounds. that's my goal.
i just want tobe healthier. and i'm be able to. i want to at least beable to jog a mile. dr. deshazo so how doesa group of people in one of mississippi'spoorest and fattest counties try to turnthings around? lots of hard work andpersonal involvement. it's personal for us. we're dedicated, focusedto actually turn
this thing around and ithas to start with us. and it's an issue thatwe're passionate about because it's personal. nobody can tellyou what to eat, nobody can make youexercise your body. it has to be personal soand it starts with us. there are a lot of peopledoing different things in the community, but it'snot done collectively. you have one persondoing this and you have
one person doing that. so we decided to put anorganization together where we bringeverybody in, like my wife said,we're the connector. we're the connectionto the other pieces that needs to be involvedin what we're doing. we want to establisha farmer's market here as well. we are considered a fooddesert and that means
that to get affordable freshfruits and vegetables, we have to travel atleast 10 plus miles. actually, it's20 plus for us. and so with that, wealso want to create a sustainable income withteaching our young people the logistics ofworking a business. at the same time, showingthem how to produce value-added products,how to run a business customer service,inventory
how to plant agarden, how to harvest manufacture, allof those things. dr. deshazo anamazing plan but one thatisn't going to come cheap. and in an area where theaverage household income tiptoes near thenational povery level money is hardto come by. the american beverageassociation has donated almost $6,000, that wasfor the infrastructure
of the legalities of theland where we're proposing for the farmer'smarket to get done and we were verygrateful to them for that. but everyting elsehas just come from out of pocket, outof things we've done. personal income,fayette comunity janell edwards,anthony edwards, deanna edwards,joe edwards rachel omara,she's an edwards, too
she's married, butjust our family. how much do you think personally you guys have put into the program? if i had to takea guesstimate i would say wellover, at this point $10,000. dr. deshazo inaddition to the money the edwards have donatedtheir land as well. a portion of that landwill be used to house
the farmer's market andmulti-purpose building. they also use two of theirown acres to grow fresh fruits and veggiesavailable to everyone in their community whowants to come out and do some picking. what weactually have in here. we have a differentvariety of plants. we got some tomatoes,we got some potatoes. we got some watermelons.
we have plentyrows of okra. and purple hull peascoming up on the other side. last year wehad cucumbers we had squash,watermelon, cantaloupe honeydew, red peppers,jalapeno peppers green peppers,purple hull peas okra, corn. it was really massive.
but because we hadmechanical issues we were just able toget this part done. the tractor went down. the old soldier went down! i mean, you can't evencomplain about the tractor because like i said,my father and mother bought this land 30some odd years ago. daddy got the tractorand we use the tractor from the time he got itup until a month ago.
dr. deshazo so,let's add this up. this one family from oneof the poorest places in our entire country-- this is ourirrigation system! dr. deshazo hasnow sacrificed $10,000+ dollars, a coupleof acres of land a tractor andcountless hours. why in the worlddo they do it? the bible tells us we'resupposed to leave
an inheritanceto our children. i know a lot of peopleassociate that with money but it's also how we live. and a part of it ishow we keep our bodies, keep our bodies. and it's health, so ifwe're not healthy to do the work then how arewe being a role model for our children? dr. deshazo andspeaking of kids
one of the eventsput on by the edwards and their fat to fit programwas a walk-a-thon and 3-on-3 basketballtournament. kids and adultsfrom mississippi and further away showedup to show off. and when there's dancing,dr. rick is there. ♪♪ these three girls traveledfrom across the country to take part in thefat to fit program.
two are from michigan,one from georgia. i talked to them alittle bit about the dancingwe just did. so, what you'vedone is work music and fun intoweight control? yeah! right! and we put it alltogether into one. you gotta make it fun withthe music
that you do with that. but if youput that together and make it a funthing, have fun. dr. deshazo and theprogram was a lot of fun. i danced well, sort of. i played basketballever heard of an air-ball? i can actuallyhit it sometimes. let's see you guys do one. i walked and i learneda lot both about
the fat to fit programand how they're being as janell says, aninspiration to the nation. we have over 400 membersfrom all across the nation that havejoined the movement. and we've actuallystarted two groups one in inkster,michigan. they drove. they have been training. the did a 6 weekwalk-a-thon in michigan
to trainfor this event. to come down forthe walk-a-thon. now they saythey're gonna win but we don't, wedon't know about that. and thenwe have a group out of atlanta,georgia. dr. deshazoso, it looks like the movementis catching on. if one small, poortown can make this much
progress, there isno reason the rest of the statecan't do the same. but there needsto be assistance there needsto be support. something that issparse at the moment. speaking of god, i surewould like to see some of yourpastors compete. i would too! so would i!
in the words ofjennifer hudson where you at? the only programsthat have come to jefferson county are theprograms that individuals in jefferson county havetried to start themselves. not the milliondollar grants or the hundred thousanddollar grants. the world needs toknow that we want to do something about it, but weneed help cause we can't
do it by ourselves. we need help.
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