JOB CORPS Obesity is an epidemic here in the United States. Record numbers of Americans battle with weight loss and struggle with becoming and staying healthy. Students at Sierra Nevada Job Corps Center, who don’t have the right information to lead a healthy lifestyle, have everything they need with the center’s Biggest Loser Weight Loss program. Formerly known as the Weight Management program, the four-year-old Biggest Loser Weight Loss program runs for 16 weeks at a time and has a combination of mandatory and volunteer participants.
Students for whom the program is mandatory are typically referred through the campus Wellness department due to health concerns such as high Body Mass Indexes (BMI), pre-diabetes and diabetes, high blood pressure, and also low body weight. During the program, students must attend at least one Nutrition Education class, one supervised workout, and perform two regular workouts each week. The campus is equipped with a weight room, a cardio exercise room, and a basketball court, all which help students learn a healthy balance between work and play while broadening their fitness horizons with exercises they may not have thought about.
Similar to the hit television show, measurements and weigh-ins also happen during the program, with measurements taken at the beginning and end of the program and weigh-ins happening every two weeks. Supervised workouts are fun and energizing, with many of the workouts following the newest trends in fitness, including Hip Hop Abs, Zumba and P90X. The program’s instructor, staff member Sharon D’Antonio, singlehandedly manages all the participating students. Starting in 2012, D’Antonio will have more than 190 students enrolled in the program.
Sierra Nevada Job Corps Center’s goal is to give its students the education and skills they need to have a successful career. But beyond that, SNJCC wants its students to leave the program well-equipped to be healthy, well-rounded individuals. The success of the program is in the numbers. The last group of students collectively lost 292 lbs. and 222 inches off their bodies.
The students all worked tremendously hard in the Biggest Loser Program during 2011 and we look forward to another successful year of promoting health and wellness in 2012!