MAHONING VALLEY Alternative practices focus of health expo

Lectures and presentations on other forms of health practices will be presented.
By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Marguerite Felice believes she may have broken new ground by holding Youngstown's first Healthy Choices Expo in 1994.
"It was something people hadn't seen before," said Felice, a Youngstown native and president of the Health Choices Network. The expo includes lectures and presentations on alternative health practices.
Now, as she prepares to hold the fifth local Healthy Choices Expo, Felice thinks that alternative health is gaining wider acceptance both in Youngstown and throughout the country.
"In the last eight years a lot has developed," she said.
Many offerings: This year's expo, April 28-29 at the Holiday Inn MetroPlex, will feature about 60 exhibits where local alternative health practitioners will discuss topics ranging from tai chi and yoga to environmentalism and spirituality. The expo also will include lectures and workshops on alternative health.
The title of the expo is "Healthy People, Healthy Earth: An Expo for Mind, Body and Spirit." About 1,600 people are expected to attend the two-day event, Felice said.
HCN member and Youngstown resident Carol Gottesman said she feels the expo serves to introduce people to alternative health practices.
"I think it's a very good way to educate people, to raise people's consciousness," said Gottesman, a registered nurse and expo presenter.
Educational: The expo also informs local residents about the "complementary health" treatments available in Youngstown, Felice said. The term complementary health refers to the belief that alternative health practices complement traditional medical treatments.
Complementary health practices include massage therapy, acupuncture, and manual lymph drainage.
Felice said that in recent years more traditional doctors have started referring their patients to complementary health practitioners. Both Felice and Kim Fitch Tharp, a massage therapist in Pulaski, Pa., and a HCN member, said they believe those referrals have helped contribute to the popularity of complementary health treatments.
"Traditional and complementary are moving together in a very comfortable way," Fitch Tharp said.
"It's everywhere -- the hospitals are having yoga classes," Felice added.
That wasn't the case in the early 1990s, before the HCN was formed, Felice said. She said that at the time local residents had no idea about the availability of complementary health options in Youngstown.
Networking: Felice said the HCN was formed in 1993 in part to educate local residents about complementary health services. The HCN also gave local complementary health practitioners the chance to work together to promote their services using the healthy choice expo, she said.
"Everybody was out doing their own things, there was nothing to bring it together," before the first expo was held, Felice said.
The first expo, organized by Felice, was a one-day event attended by about 400 people. Additional healthy choices expos were held in 1995-1997, Felice said.
After 1997 Felice and the HCN took a break from organizing the expos. Meanwhile, the HCN sponsored lectures and presentations about complementary health.
Then, last summer, the HCN conducted an anonymous survey to help determine the future of the organization. The results of the survey were unanimous: Local complementary health practitioners wanted to hold another healthy choices expo.
Tickets for this year's expo are on sale at complementary health stores in the Youngstown area. Advance registration with the HCN is required to attend workshops at the expo.
Felice said she has not decided if an expo will be held in 2002.