Michele Guerra.
Champaign County residents, according to the Illinois BRFSS, meet the standard. The survey shows that 28 percent of Illinoisans don’t get any exercise.
“What we’re missing is being able to reach the … people who are not there yet,” she said.
People struggle with work-life balance, weight management and many other issues, she said.
Over the next year, she’ll develop surveys to find out what kinds of things faculty and staff members would like to see at the center – and what resources best meet their needs in the long run.
Currently the center offers programs such as the Laughter Group, which teaches techniques about the body’s natural relaxation response, and the Cookbook Club, which reviews a different cookbook each month and samples a recipe in the center’s instructional kitchen at the club’s meeting. On Wellness Wednesdays, staff members offer mini-seminars on a variety of topics, some related to physical health such as nutritional talks while others are about financial topics such as debt management.
Guerra hopes to add to the list in the next year.
“We’ll create an interest survey and find out what (faculty and staff members and students) want in a wellness program and where they want them delivered,” she said.
Guerra, who has worked various places as a fitness expert, said she sympathizes with people who haven’t found their exercise niche.
“I have a heart for all the people who are not the jocks of the world,” she said.
She didn’t like competitive sports as a kid, describing herself as a “tall, skinny kid more interested in books and drama” than anything in gym class.
Her first foray into exercising by choice was at the advice of a choral instructor from her high school who advised her singing group that one way to maintain a good voice is to have a physically fit body.
That day, she went home, put on jogging shorts and went for a run. It was the beginning of a new passion, she said.
Her goal is to awaken that desire in others – whether they’re physically active or not.
Guerra also has served as the wellness director of Provena United Samaritans Medical Center in Danville and worked at Human Kinetics Publishing Inc., in Champaign, where she coordinated efforts with the Cooper Institute to write books about healthy eating and lifestyles. She also served as the associate director of the Fitness and Lifestyle Improvement Program at Dartmouth College.
