NET Health CEO George Roberts aims to walk 10,000 steps every day. On Monday morning, he joined Tyler Mayor Don Warren and Theresa Byrd, UT Tyler School of Health Professions Dean, on a walk around the Tyler Rose Garden.

Ultimately, Roberts hopes efforts like Monday’s kickoff to National Public Health Week help others get motivated to be active.

“The value of a good walk like this is to get up, get your heart going, (improve) cardiovascular health,” Roberts said. “Basically, the more you can move, the healthier you are.”

About 20 people came out to the kickoff event, which featured a proclamation from the City of Tyler and a walk around the rose garden. This week, set with several health-related events, aims to highlight the importance of public health and encourage people to take care of their own health. This reflects the theme for this year: “It starts here.”

Since 1925, 30 years have been added to the lifespan of Americans. This is due to public health efforts such as clean water, vaccines, and food safety, Roberts said.

In addition to the proclamation, NET Health announced the winners of their photo and essay contents.

Essay winners from first to third place were Priscillia Ihionkhan, UT Tyler clinical psychology PhD student; JaKayla Freeman-Dudley, UT Tyler occupational therapy master’s student and Sharuti Sharma, UT Tyler business administration master’s student.

Photo winners from first to third place were: Chase Geurin, Tammy Proctor and Jessie Parchman.

Warren walked with a smile while looking at the colorful flowers at the rose garden. He is also a proponent of getting active.

Every day Warren walks his dogs around Bergfeld Park. Warren enjoys the walks — rain or shine — as it holds him accountable and helps him be active. He hopes National Public Health Week makes people aware of the importance of their health and the community’s health.

Northeast Texas has high rates of diabetes, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases and heart disease, according to the Health Status of Northeast Texas 2021 report from UT Tyler.

“It’s not only just about our families, our family’s health, but it’s about the whole community and the whole region. We’re about just being healthy and being here for a few years to come,” Warren said.

Exercise and nutrition are important aspects of managing health. Byrd advises eating nutritious food, getting physical exercise and quitting smoking. Exercise can help with type two diabetes and is helpful in preventing diseases, said Byrd.

In addition, Byrd emphasizes the importance of vaccines in protecting communities. For people 65 and older, she recommends getting the shingles vaccine and RSV vaccines. In addition, she recommends the flu shot. She encourages people to talk to their doctors if they have any questions.

“Vaccines are probably the most important thing that we’ve done in public health. It has prevented an awful lot of deaths … Sometimes people have a bad reaction, but it’s pretty rare … Most of them are very safe. I would say almost every vaccine we have right now is super safe,” Byrd said.

National Public Health Week continues Tuesday with a nutrition demonstration at the East Texas Food Bank. Later this week, UT Tyler will have a screening of a public health short film on Thursday. On Friday, Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, Chief Medical Officer at the American Heart Association, will talk about cardiovascular health and brain health in Texas. To end, National Public Health, a community health fair will be held on Saturday at UT Health East Texas Physicians.

For more information on the events, visit https://www.uttyler.edu/academics/colleges-schools/health-professions/public-health-week/.