Prison Wellness Program Improves Health and Character

Prison Wellness Program Improves Health and Character through the Discipline of Exercise and Diet. By Joseph Chiappetta Jr.

Florence, AZ July 30th 2009. The Arizona Department of Corrections, like most prison systems, has a limited amount of resources, and inmates and staff are continually tasked with using what’s available to achieve the best results possible. The Wellness Program at ASPC Eyman-Meadows Unit is a perfect example of making the most of what’s available. This program is a basic exercise and diet class facilitated by inmates using nothing but the recreation yard and its existing facilities. Health Educator O’Donnell and the Recreation COlll supported and facilitated the creation of the program and have monitored this progress since its implementation. Despite its simplicity, its results are noteworthy. The pilot program is currently in its 9th week of a 12 week cycle. The class started with 18 participants and two inmate facilitators. Currently there are 5 participants left, and one facilitator. Six participants were moved to different facilities in routine transfers and the rest have dropped voluntarily for personal reasons. The one remaining inmate facilitator, Justin Frizzell, is uniquely qualified for the task having managed two Phoenix area health clubs and also working as a personal trainer. He and another inmate, a former body builder, began teaching this pilot program after a Peer Educator, Troy Froehlich, proposed and drafted the concept. Troy wanted to create an inmate facilitated Health and Wellness Class to lower medical care costs by improving the health of his fellow inmates. Troy proposed that if only a small percentage of those participating were to improve their overall health enough to forego using medications for heart and blood pressure issues then this program would significantly reduce prison health care costs. He is also one of the remaining five participants in the pilot, and he is currently using heart and high blood pressure medications.

Clearly, the participants remaining are driven to complete the twelve weeks, but why are there only 5 left? The most likely reason is the same one that challenges millions of people working out and dieting daily … discipline. It takes discipline to keep working out and dieting when the psychological and physical stress of these activities is daunting to say the least. It’s all over TV, Radio, and the Internet. .. Diet, Exercise, Supplements, Healthy Foods … You can’t avoid it. Still, the failure rate of the Meadows Unit inmates is consistent with the rest of the nation and the world. The success of the remaining 5 participants is what we should examine. As a group, these participants were chosen based upon their health needs and age. Four out of the Five are over 40 years old, and all of those have either prior military service or athletic expertise. At the end of the day it’s truly all about discipline.
In only 3 weeks this group will graduate the program. Their vital statistics … Blood Pressure, Heart Rate, B.M.I. (Body Mass Index), Body Fat Percentage, and Weight were recorded at the beginning of the 12 weeks, and these stats will be taken again at the end of week twelve. Whether or not the results of these tests are dramatically changed isn’t the real measure of success for this Health and Wellness program, though. The real measure of success is the completion itself. It takes discipline to go out for an hour of running, abs, legs, cardio, and other calisthenics at 5:45 am five days per week for 12 weeks … Eating healthy foods on a limited caloric intake regimen … and do it all while dealing with the daily challenges of working and living in a prison. This is certainly a character building exercise as well as a physical one. Perhaps this kind of class should be as mandatory as the basic reading, writing, and math programs offered in prison. That way there would be a balance of Health and Character that truly promotes Education.