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Health and wellness center opens at Thule

Story ID 03-089
April 11, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Air Force Space Command News Service
By 1st Lt. Jeremy Eggers
821st Air Base Group Public Affairs

THULE AIR BASE, Greenland - The military's northernmost health and wellness center opened for business March 28 at Thule's gym. The HAWC provides health promotion information and initiatives to some 800 U.S., Canadian, Danish and Greenlandic people who call Thule home.

The center is part of "Fix Thule," an initiative that began when former Air Force Space Command commander, Gen. Ed Eberhart, sent members of his staff to the base who identified more than $100 million of needed improvements for Thule. The $380,000 health and wellness center was a priority project in bringing the 50-year-old base into the 21st century.

"Part of our job in the military is to maintain a high-level of fitness," said Col. Lou Christensen, 821st Air Base Group commander. "The health and wellness center is a tool to help people do their job."

The center offers a variety of programs, including health assessment and personalized exercise prescriptions, as well as smoking cessation, nutrition and cooking classes. The HAWC is also home to a program Thule had a long-standing waiver for: Cycle Ergometry Testing.

"Some people would come to Thule for a year and then leave totally unprepared for their new assignment because they'd be overweight and out-of-shape," said Capt. Fred Clare, health promotions manager and medical quality assurance evaluator.

The opening of the HAWC occurred in conjunction with Air Force Space Command's WarFit Day, a command-wide day to promote fitness.

WarFit is an AFSPC program aimed toward ensuring people maintain a high-level of fitness and readiness.

"The Air Force figured out a long time ago that it's a lot cheaper and a lot better to address and encourage a healthy lifestyle as opposed to treating the outcomes of an unhealthy lifestyle," said Christensen.