Good Health For African Americans
by By Wilson, Josleen and Dixon, Barbara M.
Category: Health & Fitness , Health Care Issues

Good Health for African Americans is the first and only book dedicated to improving the health of all black Americans, written by a nationally recognized nutritionist and dynamic health educator. It defines all the complex issues that account for the enormous health gap between black and white Americans at every income level, along with a self-help program for improving health. The most current information, guidelines, and solutions to personal health problems appear nowhere else.There is a crisis in black health. African Americans live six years less than the national average and that difference is increasing. In her daily work, Barbara Dixon sees the excessive toll that diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, addictions, stress, and other major disorders take on the lives of black Americans. This disproportionate health statistic is tied to both past and present causes. Historical research traces modern health problems to the moment when the first African was captured for the slave trade. Slavery, emancipation, and modern life are all in the background of today's health picture.Dixon's message is clear and simple: By adopting a special diet as well as lifestyle changes, black Americans can begin to increase their chances for a long and robust life. Sankofa - an expression found among many West African languages, meaning "learning from the past and building for the future" - is a program that combines the healthful aspects of African-American life with the benefits of appropriate nutrition (including soul-food makeovers!), vitamins, proper exercise, and sound advice on how to relinquish risky behaviors.The goal of this truly pioneer book is to identify where history, stress, eating habits, poor medical care, rage, and racism all meet and begin to reverse their effects. All African Americans face heightened health risks, but no group has more to gain by taking charge of its own future good health.