• Listing of area doctors
• Resources for seniors
• Emergency numbers
• National Library of Medicine
• Healthfinder: Your guide to reliable health information


Update 7/5/05
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• Healthy eating doesn’t have to include meat
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• Healthy eating a lifestyle, not a ‘diet’
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Healthy eating a lifestyle, not a ‘diet’

Gladys Ritchie, 75, of Belpre, believes she has found the secret to long-term weight loss and optimum good health.

At least it’s working for her.

“You can stand anything for one day,” Ritchie said. “What you’ve got to learn is to change your eating habits, one day at a time.”

From South Beach to Atkins, America is going gaga for low carbs, but don’t talk “diet” to this Belpre mother and grandmother. She’s been there, done that, and dieting never worked.

She’s found the winning combination.

With healthy and sensible eating, walking every day, drinking six to eight glasses of water daily, and believing in what she’s doing, Ritchie has gone from 210 pounds when she started “healthy living” in December 2001 to 158 pounds today.

“I’m still on the way,” she said. “I’m still working on me.”
One way she is meeting her goal is attending food and nutrition classes offered at the

O’Neill Senior Center every other month with Kathryn K. Dodrill, Ohio State University Extension agent for family and consumer sciences.

Ritchie attended Dodrill’s class on tea Jan. 16.

“Tea is one of my favorite things,” Ritchie said. “When I started my healthy eating plan, the first day was really hard for me. I sat down with a pot of tea and just sipped. It helped me a lot.”

Dodrill said seniors who attend her classes, both at the O’Neill Center and at the Knights of Columbus Hall at Churchtown (every month), are learning the basics of eating healthy and also observing a “hands-on” example of a recipe or food to incorporate into their own eating plan.

“Motivation is often the No. 1 problem with seniors and healthy diets,” she said.

“They think, ‘Oh, it’s just me. I’ll have a bowl of oatmeal instead of cooking a dinner.’”

Dodrill’s classes not only inspire seniors to go home and cook for themselves, but also help them know what is healthiest to eat.

“I try to show them quick and easy things they can do, ideas they can take home and try,” Dodrill said.

Ritchie remembers trying out about every diet and diet program imaginable in the past 51 years. That’s why she appreciates Dodrill’s classes. It isn’t about diet.

“I’ve done them all off and on and just found out what I’d been doing wrong all that time,” she said. “When you get to your goal on a diet, you almost always revert back, eventually, to your old eating habits. We don’t like eating healthy, hate it sometimes, and so we eat what we like (once we’ve lost weight) and soon regain all that was lost.

You have to change your habits.”

When she finally realized that her most recent quest to be healthier and shed pounds wasn’t going to be fast or easy — Ritchie knew she had something.

“I’m not afraid of food anymore,” she said brightly. “I suddenly knew this would be for the long haul, the last time I would ever do this and it would be forever.”

Still on her way to a goal of about 130 pounds, Ritchie is feeling invigorated and wants the world to know she’s found her secret to good health.

“I’ve never felt better in my life. I walk. I do things to build my strength and take stairs instead of an elevator. We park away from stores and walk. I love to walk.”