The Mississippi State University Pearl River County Extension office is beginning a diabetes prevention program on Tuesday evenings starting August 23.
“More than half the population of the state has diabetes, or are overweight or obese,” MSU Extension agent Dawn Vosbein, who is leading the course, said.
The hands-on class is geared toward people who are pre-diabetic and not yet on diabetes medication, Vosbein said.
“If we prevent diabetes ahead of time, before it becomes full-blown diabetes, we save billions of dollars in healthcare,” Vosbein said.
MSU was awarded a grant from the Center for Disease Control to host this free, nationally recognized program, Vosbein said.
The class will meet every Tuesday night at the Pearl River County Hospital in Poplarville at 6 p.m. The course is set to last 16 weeks and is limited to about 10 participants.
Participants will encourage each other and share ideas. Each week focus will be on a different lesson, such as weight management, how to eat properly and other techniques that will help in the long run, Vosbein said.
She will be teaching participants how to track of what they eat and how much they exercise.
Mississippi is currently leading in the country for the percentage of its population diagnosed with diabetes, Vosbein said.
“We don’t want to be number one, we want people to achieve their goals and try to prevent diabetes and make everybody a little bit healthier,” she said.
Vosbein is a registered dietician and has been a diabetes educator since 1993. She will be teaching the class alongside JoLynn Davis, a nurse at the Pearl River County Hospital and Nursing Home.
The program has been successfully taught in other areas in Mississippi, Vosbein said.
PRC Hospital and the MSU Extension Center also have diabetes risk assessment forms that can be filled out at any time, Vosbein said.
She said some risk indicators include: having a family member with diabetes, being overweight and inactive, being over the age of 45 or 50, or recently giving birth to a large child.
Registration for the program will remain open until Tuesday, August 23. To register, call the MSU Extension Center at 601-403-2280.