This past Saturday, September 9, in the heart of St. James, Energy Fitness hosted its first annual Community Health Fair welcoming the public to meet tons of local vendors who are dedicated to health improvement.
“Back to school, back to health” was their mission with this health fair, to inspire everybody to put their health first. Energy Fitness, which is located all around the island in St. James, Northport, Huntington, Miller Place, and Rockville Center, operates with one mission in mind: “to be the most supportive fitness family in the world,” according to Kelly Calia, General Manager of Energy Fitness in St. James.
The first annual health fair was held in the parking lot of the Energy Fitness in St. James and featured vendors related to skin health, gut health, mental health, and life insurance because being heathy is not exclusive to being in shape. It is important to take care of all parts of your body and mind.
These vendors were not only selling their products. They also provided advice and tips on how to take care of yourself, how often you should prioritize your health and how to go about starting.
Janet Minces, a Medical Esthetician at Marrota MedSpa in Smithtown hosted her booth at the front of the fair and taught the importance of the daily use of sunscreen in every season. “You want to protect your skin from the lack of ozone layer that we have right now.” Minces explains how different UV rays will cause different types of damage to the skin.
“You have ultraviolet-A (UVA) Rays and UVB rays. The A-Rays are the aging rays, the B-Rays are the burning rays. Both cause skin cancer, and who needs skin cancer?”
According to Minces, using sunscreen every day is one of the best ways to protect your skin.
“God gave us one skin, it’s the largest organ of our body, if we take care of it, it will take care of us, because that is our first line of defense,” she says.
Along with vendor’s advice and products, the fair also hosted different fitness activities and competitions for anybody willing to be involved. Members who came to the gym for their own fitness journey came outside to check out the health fair and participate in some of these competitions, showing how much Energy Fitness truly is a community.
“We are built on our one-on-one coaching; we are built on that philosophy that everyone needs someone,” says Calia. “Each person is different; our plans are not cookie cutter.” Energy Fitness revolves around providing each individual member with their own personalized workout and health plan that supports their goals.
“We know that everyone needs us on a different level, so we provide the accountability,” Calia adds.
Energy Fitness provides every member with their own expert fitness coach who will help you find your personalized fitness and nutrition program. Because they know everybody is different, they are prepared to coach people of all ages and abilities.
“We have twelve-year-olds that start here in our teen program, and our oldest training client is ninety, so we have a wide variety of ages and fitness levels,” says Calia. She believes that you’re never too young or too old to care about your health and wellbeing.
The gym wanted to remind their current members and inspire some new members to take care of themselves during the fair.
“Aubrey has been working on this for months,” says Calia. “Think what the main inspiration behind something like this is. Moving into this fall, something that we really wanted to focus on is just people finding the time for their health and wellness, and making that a priority for everyone who comes in, whether it’s one of our members or someone who just decided to stop in.”
Aubrey, the Assistant General Manager at Energy Fitness was the idea-holder of this health fair after being inspired by a similar event hosted in Rockville Center. “I think this will be our first of many, and it will just get bigger and bigger.”
