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A healthy lifestyle doesn’t just happen. It requires effort, attention and time to evolve and take root. There is a new emphasis within the LSU AgCenter School of Nutrition and Food Sciences on the value and effectiveness of small changes and healthy habits as a way to realize and normalize healthy eating and physical activity.
Extension nutrition agents are working within Louisiana communities to provide education and skills to Louisianans and to guide their transition to a healthy lifestyle.
What is a healthy lifestyle?
In general, a healthy lifestyle is a way of living that promotes a sense of well-being, reduces risk of preventable diseases and increases life expectancy. A healthy diet and ample physical activity are two of five areas — along with healthy body weight, not smoking and moderate alcohol consumption — that have the greatest impact on health and longevity.
Why is this program needed?
More than 35% of Louisiana’s adults are obese and another 34% are overweight. In fact, most American adults are overweight such that being overweight seems normal. Obesity and overweight are major risk factors for diabetes, hypertension and other chronic diseases and conditions.
Being obese or overweight also affects quality of life and well-being. There is a growing interest in developing healthier eating and physical activity habits.
Flavors of Health
Flavors of Health is an LSU AgCenter community nutrition and health education program led by a core group of 10 nutrition agents, most of whom have received Health Coach Certif-ication training to prepare for this program. These agents provide expertise on a wide variety of topics that support healthy eating, including how to set realistic goals, make small changes in daily behaviors, transform healthy behaviors into healthy habits and select healthful foods.
Flavors of Health teaches basic cooking skills and strategies to increase exercise and physical activity. It also provides information on healthful eating patterns and on nutrients, processed foods, weight management, chronic disease prevention and other food and nutrition issues.
Flavors of Health is launching a new Small Changes/Healthy Habits curriculum designed to help Louisiana adults establish healthier eating and physical activity habits through small changes in their food and fitness-related behaviors. All 10 agents offer this practical, four-session, hands-on curriculum in their parishes.
People with a healthier lifestyle are healthier people. Healthier people foster healthier communities. It takes time to establish new habits. It begins with small changes. That’s the evolution of a healthy lifestyle.
—Elizabeth Gollub is an assistant professor in the School of Nutrition and Food Sciences, and Sandra May is an extension associate and curriculum coordinator.
—Acknowledgements Creating the Small Changes/Health Habits curriculum has been a team effort that includes Abigail McAlister, nutrition agent in the Northwest Region; Becky Gautreaux and Mandy Armentor, nutrition agents in the Southwest Region; and Quincy Vidrine, nutrition agent in the Central Region, Elizabeth Gollub and Sandra May.
(This article appears in the fall 2019 issue of Louisiana Agriculture.)

LAFAYETTE — The St. Mary Parish public school desegregation lawsuit, now in its 55th year, appears certain to continue at least through October, according to documents filed in the case in U.S. District Court here.
Parties in the lawsuit, filed in 1965 on behalf of five black St. Mary children, have submitted a work plan for site visits, exchanging information and other potential progress toward resolution to District Judge Robert R. Summerhays.
The plan has a suggested timeline that continues through mid-October and could be followed by a ruling from Summerhays that the school system has eliminated discrimination in key areas and should be free of federal oversight.
Summerhays is the latest in a string of federal judges who have presided over the lawsuit, which resulted in the end of separate public schools for black and white students. Court records show that much of that work was done by the mid-1970s. But there has never been a final resolution of the case.
The most recent courtroom deliberations happened at a Thursday conference in Lafayette. Attorneys for the plaintiffs, the school district and the U.S. Department of Justice appeared before Summerhays.
According to a transcript entered in the court file this week, the conference was dominated by two issues: the role of the U.S. Justice Department as the case moves forward and the standard the district should meet to show it has eliminated segregation.
The Justice Depart-ment became involved soon after the federal court ordered the School Board to begin desegregating public schools in August 1965. The next month, a filing in state district court attempted to prevent the St. Mary School Board from following the federal court order. That was followed by an attempt to have the lawsuit moved from federal to state court.
The federal court rejected the move, but not before the Justice Department intervened on behalf of the plaintiffs.
At Thursday’s conference, the issue was whether the Justice Department should have a purely “amicus” role, free to advocate for a position but without the status of a party in the case, or a “litigating amicus” role with a bigger part to play in negotiations and proceedings.
NAACP attorneys representing the plaintiffs argued for the stronger federal role.
Attorneys for the School Board argued against.
“Throughout we were working collaboratively with the district until the motion to dismiss was filed last year,” said Department of Justice attorney Caela Breen-Portnoy. “So we would like to continue in that vein and be as helpful to all the parties as possible.”
The judge said he didn’t think the appellate courts would go along with the stronger federal role as the parties work to achieve unitary status, or freedom from federal oversight.
“I want to put this in the best position to, you know, make a determination of whether we have achieved unitary status and … to put the district back under local control …,” Summerhays said.
But the judge also said the Department of Justice should have information about the case that might need to decide whether to intervene further.
One of the NAACP attorneys for the plaintiffs, Deuel Ross, also suggested that the court should consider the quality of education and the application of disciplinary action as it determines whether the district should be declared to have unitary status.
The guide for making that determination was set out in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1968 ruling in Green v. School Board of New Kent County, Va. The court established key areas in which school districts must demonstrate that they are free of discrimination: student and faculty assignments, equality in facilities, transportation, and extracurricular activities. These came to be known as “Green factors.”
Ross argued that expulsions of disproportionately large numbers of black students would result in a racial imbalance.
“We’re not trying to open Pandora’s box …,” Ross said. “But to the extent we see specific problems we think the court can and should address, we intend to raise them.”
John Blanchard, an attorney of the School Board, acknowledged that courts had allowed for the consideration of the impact of disciplinary actions. But he said courts have also created a strict burden of proof for the plaintiffs when it comes to discipline.
“I think our client has met its obligations,” Blanchard said. “It met them back in 1975, and it’s meeting them today.”
Summerhays said he’s inclined to stick with the original Green factors as a basis for ruling.
“I believe, based on my review of the historical pleadings in this case, that those two areas [education quality and disciplinary action] were not considered by the court as an independent basis for a unitary status determination,” the judge said.
The plaintiffs in the original lawsuit were Claude Boudreaux, on behalf of two children referred to only by their initials, and Shelby Bourgeois, on behalf of three children.
Court documents indicate that the three Bourgeois children graduated in the mid-1970s. There is no record that the Boudreaux children graduated or transferred out of school.
The School Board moved in March to have the lawsuit dismissed and has challenged the class action status of the lawsuit.
District Judge Robert James denied the motion and re-certified the class action status last year before handing the case off to Summerhays.
Court records show the court was prepared to declare that the district had achieved unitary status in the 1970s, even to the point of having a draft ruling. But the ruling never went into effect for reasons that are not clear in the court record.
Court filings say the 2019-20 enrollment in St. Mary schools was 8,462. Of those students, 44% were white, 41% were black and the rest were members of other ethnic groups.

Peggy Marie Williams, 57, a native and resident of Morgan City, died Thursday, Jan. 16, 2020, at her residence.
Visitation will be Thursday, 4-5 p.m., at Jones Funeral Home in Morgan City.
She is survived by her mother, Audrey Williams of Morgan City; a son, Ronald Williams of Lafayette; three brothers, Caffery Williams and Brock Williams, both of Morgan City, and Anderson Williams of Atlanta; a sister, Labelle Williams of Morgan City; stepsiblings; a grandson; and a host of other relatives.
She was preceded in death by a daughter, father, a sister, a brother, maternal grandmother, maternal great-grandmother and paternal grandparents.
Jones Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.