Newporters Get Fit

As part of its commitment to caring for the residents of Newport County, Newport Hospital offers a variety of programs to promote healthy living.

One of the hospital’s most successful programs is Enough is Enough, a six-week weight loss program. During the first phase of the program, participants meet for an hour, five evenings each week. Session topics include nutrition, exercising with cardiac fitness equipment, and yoga. During the second phase, participants attend two meetings each week; one evening is spent with a nutrition counselor and the second is for yoga instruction. Participants have dropped as many as 60 cholesterol points during the six-week period, an unmistakable sign of the program’s success.

Quit Smart is a four-week program that takes a psychological approach to smoking cessation. Quit Smart uses relaxation and mindfulness techniques, along with a proven “quit smoking kit” to help participants taper their smoking. Not all participants quit the habit the first time around. Some smokers need to go through the program more than once to completely quit smoking.

Newport Hospital also offers programs for children. One is an asthma prevention and reduction program modeled after Hasbro Children’s Hospital’s successful Draw-A-Breath program. Through a partnership with the Newport Housing Authority and other community organizations, Newport Hospital provides children and their families with the information and tools they need to effectively prevent and manage asthma.

The hospital also works with children and their parents to help reduce childhood obesity. Newport Hospital is currently piloting a new program with Head Start; the goal is to educate parents and children about proper nutrition and exercise. Newport Hospital hopes to eventually bring this program to local afterschool programs.

The hospital’s many well-attended support groups include those focused on breastfeeding, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, Parkinson’s disease and stroke. The hospital’s exercise classes are also open to the public, and include yoga, Pilates and aerobics.

For more information about the programs, classes, and support groups offered at Newport Hospital, please call 401-845-1592 or find one online.

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