Sunshine Table
The Sunshine table is where you will look at the health benefits of sunlight with your participants. Many individuals don’t realize the benefits of sunlight. In fact, many specifically avoid sunlight because of worry over skin cancers. While moderation is a good thing, we do need direct sun exposure for our body’s health. God created us that way!
At this station, you will want to education participants about the benefits of sunshine. One of the benefits of sunlight is that it converts cholesterol in the skin into a vitamin-D precursor, and as such sunlight can minimally decrease cholesterol levels. Because of this, we check cholesterol levels as this station, and since we are getting blood for cholesterol levels at this table, we also get blood sugar levels to check for diabetes.
It is best if this station can operate with a number of assistants. You need at minimum 2, both of which should be doctors or nurses. Obviously, you will need the necessary equipment as well. You can either set it up so that one individual does the blood sugar testing and one does the cholesterol testing, or several do each of the tests. It would be good to have someone at the table specifically to educate the participants about the benefits of sunshine, as this typically does not happen when two individuals are concentrating on taking blood tests.
Any participants who are identified with elevated blood sugars (above 125mg/dl fasting or 200mg/dl random) or elevated cholesterol levels (above 200mg%) should be referred to the physician at the health fair, the participant’s personal physician, or the local health clinic for follow-up. Also, any participants who have elevated blood sugar levels or are known diabetics should be given the Exploring Diabetes and Treating Diabetes handouts, and any participants who have elevated cholesterol levels should be given a Controlling Your Cholesterol handout.