This Shelby County program with free cooking, fitness classes has changed lives in Memphis

Posted by author January 24, 2025 Fitness

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More than half of Shelby County residents are obese or overweight, and education on how to make positive health decisions has been limited in the county.

ShelbyCares, a partnership between Shelby County Government and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, has been on a mission to change that since February 2023. Dr. Jim Bailey, executive director of the Tennessee Population Health Consortium at UTHSC, guides the training and medical service delivery of ShelbyCares health coaches and ambassadors.

Bailey has been in Memphis for over 30 years and has been mad about something for the majority of his medical career ― lack of preventative care in the area.

“In Whitehaven, we’ve got more dialysis centers than we have primary care clinics,” Bailey said. “This horrific situation where it’s easier to get dialysis than it is to get the key services you need to prevent dialysis, which are far cheaper, right? So I’ve been angry about this all my career.”

So, that is where ShelbyCares steps in. ShelbyCares Neighborhood Health Hub Model is getting national recognition, Bailey said. The model provides a low-cost way to provide the most essential primary and preventative care that people need to avoid stroke and heart attack and live more abundant lives, Bailey said.

The flagship location is in the McKeller neighborhood in South Memphis, where health services like health screenings, health coaching and nutrition education are free of charge. The office is bright and includes health screening rooms with paintings from local high school students covering the walls.

ShelbyCares also hosts free workout classes across the county in gyms and churches.

Meals can be cooked in a small kitchen inside the ShelbyCares on Third location. The food is free and participants go home with more free food so they can cook healthy meals at home. Bailey said the nutrition focus is on the “Mediterranean Diet,” which includes mainly fruits, vegetables, whole grains and seafood.

“We try and adapt the foods that people love and cherish, the Southern foods that we love and cherish, to sort of that what makes the Mediterranean Diet the proven most healthy diet for humans,” Bailey said.

From ‘uncontrolled diabetic’ to non-diabetic

Penny Ward, who has been a part of ShelbyCares for the last year, came into the health clinic with a troubling prognosis. She had had bloodwork done that showed her A1C, a blood test measuring the last three months of blood sugar, had been as high as the upper 10s. An A1C level higher than 6.5 is considered diabetic.

Ward had not been under 200 pounds in over 40 years and was weighing in at around 230 pounds in conjunction with high blood pressure and diabetes. She wanted to make a change so when Riverside Missionary Baptist Church partnered with ShelbyCares to hold workout classes in their gym she decided to join in.

“I saw the flyers on the table in the lobby, and I was like, ‘ShelbyCares? OK, let’s exercise. Let’s go see what this chair aerobics (is)’, you know, they got chair yoga, they have line dancing,” Ward said.

Ward said the keyword for her was “free.” ShelbyCares does not charge Shelby County residents for the work they do, from fitness classes to health screenings to cooking classes.

“My family know where I am on Mondays and Wednesdays, at 12 noon, I’m at Riverside and chair aerobics every first and third Monday, I’m in line dance at 1 o’clock on Mondays,” Ward said.

Ward has been in the program for the last year and she is down to 183 pounds and has reversed her diabetes. Her last reading for her A1C was 5.6, which registers as a normal reading for A1C.

“I wish I had known about (ShelbyCares) in 2021, I would have been there, I hate I missed those years back there,” Ward said.

Thousands served, health improvements made

As of early January, almost 7,000 people have visited ShelbyCares to get access to the health screenings they provide. Visit numbers are high and the services it provide also have high interest, with 1,091 health screenings, 1,000 initial health coaching visits, over 2,000 follow-up health coaching visits and 2,340 group sessions attended.

Many of the people who visit are obese, with 56% of those screened being diagnosed as such. Hypertension is also a leading health ailment for visitors with 48% of those screened also meeting the criteria.

The outcomes, however, show that regular visits to the free health clinic’s health coaching come with positive outcomes.

Participants have seen weight loss and systolic blood pressure, which is the measurement of maximum blood pressure during contraction of the ventricles, decreased by 10% with regular visits. And random blood glucose measurements have also on average decreased by 18%.

ShelbyCares uses “health coaches” to drive motivation for health improvements. These health coaches are certified by UTHSC and use a counseling method called motivational interviewing, an empowerment approach that has been proven to be better than other methods of counseling in helping people make changes in their own lives, Bailey said.

The program is funded through monies from the American Rescue Plan Act, which was a one-time pocket of funds given to local governments and states across the U.S. in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. ARPA funds had to be allocated by December of 2024 and completely spent by 2026.

Brooke Muckerman is a political reporter for The Commercial Appeal, covering the city of Memphis, Shelby County Government and MSCS Board of Education. She can be reached at brooke.muckerman@commercialappeal.com and via phone at 901-484-6225.