Unhealthy Problems

Unhealthy Problems

by: Rachel Sanchez

Five years ago, I was coming up from band class when I held the door
for somebody. They did not say “thank you.” I was so annoyed that I did
not notice that my finger had gotten caught in the heavy metal door.

The next thing I remember was being taken to the emergency room at
North Central Bronx Hospital with a broken finger. I arrived at the
hospital at 3:00 in the afternoon and went up to the nurse. She took one
glance at my finger, told me to sit down and wait until the doctor was
ready to see me.

The next time we saw a doctor or a nurse coming my way was at 10:00
PM, seven hours after I had first arrived. And all the doctor did was put my
finger in a cast and give me an appointment for a later date.

Going to the emergency room is no vacation for anyone, but we imagine
being treated well as soon as possible. However, this is not the case
in several Bronx hospitals. Patients are not getting adequate treatment
and care, which can lead to further grave consequences.

The New York Times ran an article on Tuesday, July 26th, titled “In
Bronx, a Fight for Health and Dignity” that focuses on this very issue.
Yvonne Pagan was shot by a stray bullet and taken to Lincoln Hospital.
There, doctors and nurses did not do much to her wound, even telling her
that the bullet in her head would eventually come out. Healthcare officials
even refused to provide counseling to Ms. Pagan, who became emotionally
unstable after her incident.

Frankly, this is a very large embarrassment to New York City. How can we explain to anybody that Bronx hospitals let people with bullets embedded in their skulls walk away with just a band-aid over them? How do we justify the unfair actions of healthcare workers in the Bronx?

The answer is quite simple: we can’t. But what we can do is to bring this issue into the public eye. This year we have a special advantage: Mayor Bloomberg has begun his run for reelection. Instead of heavily campaigning for a new stadium for a sports team, he should be focusing on the health and status of people living throughout the city’s boroughs. It won’t be possible for Bronx residents to vote for Bloomberg if they’re, well, dead.

The city prides itself on cracking down on “corrupt” issues such as making sure the Mr. Softee ice cream trucks don’t overuse their familiar little jingle and people don’t take up two seats on the subway.

Maybe if the city also cracked down on lax Bronx hospitals and enforced fines and punishment on these institutions, doctors and nurses, we would avoid further lapses in our health care system. That way, the city can shine brightly again, knowing that all its citizens are being watched over.
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The Transformation
By Cris Chalmers

Some people would say that losing over 70 pounds in three months isn't healthy. Not
Charit Louis. Charit Louis, a student at Lehman College, is a slim, healthy-looking young woman. You would never guess that she once was overweight.

"I wouldn't say I was obese, but I was overweight." says the 20-year-old student. Charit grew up in the Bronx, the borough which has become known as the "fat" borough. The Bronx's obesity rate has been rising for the past 10 years, according to Mayor Bloomberg. Louis says it's easier to get fat in the Bronx than in any other borough because there's a deli stocking unhealthy junk food on every corner. "You could get a mega cinnabun for 25 cents," she said.

Louis was going on and off diets for some time before she stumbled upon the Vegan
Diet. The Vegan Diet is a diet in which the user can eat nothing that comes from animals. A
lot of soy products are consumed in one of the few diets tougher than vegetarian. "I ate soy ice
cream" Louis said with a laugh.

Along with the diet, Louis did a lot of exercise. "I exercised almost every day."Maintaining this diet and exercising helped Louis lose over 70 pounds in three months. "My
mom thought I had a eating disorder," she said.

In order to maintain her newfound form, Louis eats in controlled proportions, trying not to over do it Today she is a happy, healthy young woman who is in shape and has never felt
better. "I'm happy the way I am now."

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Extreme Makeover
By: Merlys Alberto

If you see Charit Louis, 20, you wouldn’t think much of her weight. But in the past year Louis has surprised her family and friends by losing more than 70 pounds. As America strives for perfection you see more and more reality shows based on appearance and self-image. In our society everyone wants the perfect body, not the most healthy body. Louis started her journey to losing weight not only because she wanted a new appearance, but because she wanted to stay healthy.

“I never wanted to be like everyone else,” she says. “I wanted to be healthy and comfortable.”
During the past three years, Louis always began diets but was never determined enough to actually finish one. One day while surfing the web, she came across an ad describing a diet from a website called http://www.ediets.com/. Charit chose the Vegan diet, which meant no food from any type of animal; that meant no meat, eggs, cheese, or any of the other wonderful things she had loved to eat before.

Louis began her diet in September, 2004. She admits that the first couple of weeks where the hardest. Being 19 and a senior in college, she had times where she wanted to break the diet, but she was determined to complete her goal. She followed her diet and tried to work out as much as she could. Charit weighed 198 when she started her challenge and by the end of three months she had lost 70 pounds, with all her determination and self-confidence.

Americans have made reality shows like, Extreme Makeover and Dr.90210, which show a rapid increase of people going under the knife to have their ideal body type. Our society bases beauty on weight alone. What people don’t realize is that two out of three adult Americans, or 60 percent, are overweight or obese of America, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Obesity begins at an early age. Over the past couple of years, even children have become over weight and progressed to becoming obese. Obesity is rapidly becoming an epidemic in our society.

“I wasn’t obese, I was just overweight,” Louis said. After she began to lose weight, her family and friends began to react. Louis’ mother became very worried and thought that her daughter was becoming very sick and was battling an eating disorder. Her friends were mainly supportive, and her guy friends were amazed by her transformation. Many people confronted her with negativity about her change, but Louis was happy at what she had accomplished.
Louis now feels healthy and is comfortable with her weight. She has gone thought a change but not for what she thought society wanted, for what she wanted.

“I never wanted to starve myself. I love food, but I never want to go back to how I was before.”

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Miracle Weight Loss
By Darah Phillip

Many Americans today would be extremely eager to lose 70 pounds in three months. This is what Charit Louis did when she started college and decided to shed the pounds. Her story does not include diet pills, surgery, or eating disorders. It is simply an amazing story of achievement for this 20-year-old Manhattan resident that should inspire the multitudes hoping to lose weight.
At the start of the school year in 2004, Louis’ weight ranged from 189 to 200 pounds, which she attributes to “a lot of hamburger specials.” She had been trying to lose weight and diet on and off without success; her motivation was always short-lived and her attempts at dieting lasted only as long as a week. Plagued with heart problems and a range of good reasons to lose weight, Louis decided that it was time to become serious about her weight and health.
“I got fed up so I decided that I needed to do it,” Louis said.

Her story begins with a trip to ivillage.com, where she saw a link about a free weight-loss challenge provided by the Discovery Channel and ediets.com. Ready to do anything that was free, Louis visited the website and in doing so, took the first steps to living a healthier life.
“It was hard in the beginning,” Louis said. The ediet.com method forced Louis to drastically change her eating habits and become a vegan. This was very hard for her, being part Dominican, since she would be unable to eat much of the food prepared for her by her family, which she regularly enjoyed.

“I was on a really strict caloric diet,” she said. She also exercised at least five days a week. Although it was a struggle, the hard work paid off and today Louis is 70 pounds lighter than she was less than a year ago.Some advice she would give to dieters: “keep going to the gym because the second you don’t, you get lazy.”

Many of Louis’ peers and family weren’t completely comfortable with the speedy weight loss. Her mother even said that she looked sick, and tried to start “an intervention,” as if Louis were suffering from an eating disorder, such as anorexia nervosa. Anything but the truth. “I never want to starve myself,” she said. “I love food.”

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Taking the Will for the Deed
By Pratik Shah

There are many interesting facts about the Bronx. Out of New York City’s five boroughs, the Bronx is the only one that is connected to the mainland. The Bronx is also the fattest borough. There are more fat people in the Bronx than in any borough. The problem of obesity is very critical and serious at the same time. Fast food chains, easy transportation, and lack of information contribute to this problem. Many people who face or have faced the problem of obesity try to address the issue and hopefully solve the problem. Meet Charit Louis, a college student at Lehman College. At 19, she was teetering between 189 and 200 pounds.

Louis was your average girl who, as most people do, excessively ate at fast food chains. She loved the hamburger specials and mozzarella sticks. “It’s cheaper to go to McDonald’s and get something on the dollar menu than to go the supermarket,” Louis said. As time went on, she began experiencing heart problems and difficulty breathing. She also became aware of her self-image and decided to do something about it. While visiting ivillage.com, she stumbled upon a popup in which she found out about an online weight loss challenge that was free. It required that she convert to a complete vegan diet. This, of course, meant that she had to stop eating fast food.

The once carefree eater, Louis had to begin watching her calorie intake and daily exercise regimen. “Keeping a vegan diet was hard and costly,” Louis said. However, in three months she lost about 70 pounds. Her friends and family were shocked. Her mother thought that Louis had acquired an eating disorder, as many young girls do when they enter college because they become very self-conscience of their images. Losing 70 pounds in three pounds was a rapid change.

Thanks to the weight loss, Louis was able to again breathe easier, get more in tuned with herself, and be recognized in a new way by her friends and family. Boys she’d known for years but who had never paid her much attention romantically now started to ask her out. She says that she was able to achieve this almost impossible task since she believes that “If you stick with it, you can obviously do it.”

Louis still goes to the gym to exercise. She still watches her diet and strongly believes that other people use her example as a model to accomplish such goals. “You just have to be persistent. It doesn’t happen over night,” Louis said. As an old saying goes “When there is a will, there is a way.”
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Livin’ Large
By Stephanie Sanchez

July 25, 2005, Lehman college- Looking at Charit Louis, 20, you would never know that she once shared the same problem that over 30% of Hispanic children now face in New York city today, that less than a year ago, she was considerably overweight.

Louis, now a Lehman college student residing in Manhattan, was once an overweight teen with poor health and self-image issues. Her decision to shed the excess weight would boost her health and morale. It would also prove to overweight and obese people that weight loss, hard as it is, is very possible.

“I lost weight to be healthier and feel better about myself,” Louis said. She claims that she began to gain most of her weight in high school. “I had a long term boyfriend and we would always eat together and just chill.” Louis said that she became less active and the pounds began to creep onto the scale. Eventually, her weight became too much for her body to handle, causing her to have severe heart problems. Along with Louis’ heart problems, came insecurity about her image and weight.

Entering the college semester in the fall of 2004, Louis made a serious decision to lose the weight that had taken up residence in her body, as a result of her long-term high school relationship. She knew that this could not be like all the rest of her failed attempts to work out and eat less.

“I would go to the gym for about a week and then just stop,” Louis said.
She knew that this time she had to be serious, so she did some research. Browsing the web one day, Louis came across a special program sponsored by the Discovery Channel, which made meal plans, offered health tips, and special diets. She knew this would be it and her living large days would be over.

Louis went on a strict caloric vegan diet, a diet that meant she could not eat anything originated from animals, and everything she did eat had to have its calories counted.

“The vegan diet is hard core; being a vegetarian is easier to deal with,” Louis said. She said that it was a hard thing to do, especially for the first week. Being half-Dominican, Louis said that it was hard resisting temptation to eat all of the Dominican meals her mother would prepare. “It was a battle not to eat all of that food,” she said. Louis was forced to eat dairy and meat substitutes, along with a lot of fruits and vegetables.

“I was eating a lot of synthetic, fake tasting food, and it was expensive.” She said that it was definitely a challenge, but after three months of the vegan diet and daily trips to the gym she lost 70 pounds.

“I worked out like every single day,” she said.
After losing the weight and feeling a lot more confident about herself, Louis was ready to face the world. But the responses she would get were not exactly the best. After seeing her physical transformation, many of Louis’ friends thought she had an eating disorder.

“I wasn’t starving myself. I never wanted to starve myself. I love food!” she said.
Some thought Louis’ new look was great, while others thought she looked sickly. Louis said that she also began to get a lot of unwanted attention from her male friends. Many of them began to look at her like more than just a friend.

“I was the chick they all hung out with, and then I lost the weight and…”
Louis’ family especially did not like her new look, “My mother and father didn’t like that I lost the weight, they felt that I looked fine the way I was and didn’t need to lose the weight,” Louis recalled.

She also got a negative response from her sister, who at the time had gained a lot of weight from a pregnancy. “She is such a hater,” Louis said, joking. She said her sister’s negative response came from her own jealousy. The ambivalent sister, Louis said, would tell her that she looked too skinny or too sick, but there were also times when her sister would also give her recognition for her progress.

So what has Louis learned from her experiences and what does she have to say to the rest of fat America? “I learned that I was capable of sticking with something, and in the end the benefits will outweigh the sacrifices made.”

As for everyone else enslaved to the obesity epidemic, sure it would be way cheaper and easier to just drive through to McDonald’s or go to the corner store than to actually get something healthy to eat, but Louis had some enlightening advice.

“You have to battle with it for a while, but then there’s a breakthrough. You just have to be persistent with it. When you come to the end of it, it’s all worth it.”