“I am a man of God, created in His likeness and image, to do His good work. The work created me to do. His will is to see His people healthy and whole. H.E.A.L. Mississippi is one of His avenues to do just that.”- Chris Fields
Chris, has a bachelors in Kinesiology with advanced degrees in clinical exercise physiology and nutrition and holds an MBA. Chris has served as a Diabetes Educator and Diabetes Prevention Lifestyle Coach and has worked with various low income clinics throughout the state helping to implement health programs, specifically for their patients suffering with chronic diseases related to obesity, diabetes prevention programs and diabetes self-management programs. Chris’s healthcare experience dates 10 + years serving as clinician and also in administration giving him a valuable experience in writing policy and procedures as well as implementation. In his later years, Chris is a former athlete but it wasn’t until later in life that he began to understand the true essence of exercise, health. “Exercise is medicine.”, he says. Growing up minority, he was told that vegetables were good for him but wasn’t told that soul food, fried chicken, fried catfish (staple foods in the black community) could eventually kill him. So as a child, he suffered with obesity and its related diseases, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Later “growing out of it”, by becoming active.
“For the most part, being unhealthy is a learned behavior. Some behaviors are innate, some are not. We have to want to unlearn to be able to learn and grow. We are cultured into poor eating habits. We are cultured into sedentary behavior. As a result, we push our bodies to the point to where it can’t fight back anymore resulting in obesity, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, which leads to cardiac events and eventually death. We are blessed if diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol precede heart attacks and death. Developing diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and other diseases related to obesity, is our bodies way of letting us know there is still time to make a change. H.E.A.L. Mississippi is that change. God had whoever is going to be impacted through H.E.A.L. Mississippi in mind when he gave us the vision for H.E.A.L. He always has us in mind. ‘HE knows the plans HE has for us. Plans for us to prosper, never to harm us.’ Jerimiah 33:3. ”
-Chris Fields