Meet Alicia Diaz, 11-year healthcare veteran and advocate for the Black community who saw the need for nutrition and health awareness and decided to make a change.
Diaz, who holds a master’s degree in health education, began conducting research and found Blacks are known for having the highest cases of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.
“As African American people, this is something that is so important because of the health statistics. The thing is obesity, hypertension, diabetes, especially type two, those are preventable. We just have to make the right choices,” said Diaz.
In 2016, Diaz launched Heal L.A. Wellness in South L.A. with one mission in mind, “supporting the community through health events that discuss clean eating, the importance of physical fitness, natural remedies, and holistic health.”
After the launch, Diaz began using social media as a way to introduce fitness ideas and healthy nutrition options to the Black community.
“I began thinking, what can I do to change this disparity,” said Diaz. “This is making a life change and that’s how ultimately we as a community can become healthier.”
Heal L.A. Wellness held its first free community event in early May at “The Spot,” a Black-owned pop-up space in Inglewood. While there, attendees were able to receive free blood pressure screenings, information on women’s health, and other informational tools on improving one’s mental, spiritual and physical health.
“It went really well, people were shocked we were even doing something like that in our community,” said Diaz.
The Black community can expect more events similar to the health and wellness fair in the future.
“We definitely plan on branching out,” said Diaz. “We want to have seminars, classes, more health fairs like the one we just had, where we get different vendors who come together so that there can be a lot of information you can get just from one place.”
Diaz encourages people of all ages to be mindful of their health between annual doctor’s appointments.
“We should be going to our annual doctor’s visits, but between those doctor’s visits, what do we do to keep ourselves healthy,” said Diaz. “Do we think about our nutrition on a day-to-day basis, which up until eight years ago, I didn’t. But, everything that we do, every decision we make, everything we eat has an impact on the way we feel and our future health.”
All of the information published on Heal L.A. Wellness social media pages are from reliable medical sources like the Center for Disease Control. For more information on the organization, please visit www.heallawellness.com and follow Heal L.A. Wellness on Facebook @HealLAWellness.
