West Cook YMCA Diabetes Prevention Program 2024

DIABETES PREVENTION PROGRAM

MEASURABLE PROGRESS, UNLIMITED SUPPORT

What is the Diabetes Prevention Program?

  • One year program consisting of 26 sixty-minute group sessions
  • Small, supportive group environment
  • Led by a trained and certified lifestyle coach
  • Learn more about healthier eating and increasing physical activity to reduce risk
  • Free of charge for both members and nonmembers
  • Includes complimentary YMCA membership for program duration

Change is Tough- We Can Help

Let’s face it, if change were easy, we’d all do it. You’ve spent years developing habits that you can’t expect to change overnight. It’s tough.

We can help.

The YMCA's Diabetes Prevention Program gives you the skills you need and the support you deserve to make lasting healthy lifestyle changes. With this program, you will be encouraged to make small, achievable changes. It’s not too late- we are here to support you.

Group Support Keeps You Motivated

Everyone needs a push, a pat on the back, a helping hand sometimes. A little encouragement goes a long way when you’re making big changes. In the YMCA’s Diabetes Prevention Program, you will spend a year surrounded by a group of supportive people with common goals who care about your well-being.

As a participant, you’ll enjoy:

  • A safe space where you can feel comfortable sharing and learning in private.

  • Making new friends. You will support each other as you all trade old habits for healthier new ones.

  • Working as a group. You don't have to figure this out alone.

  • The new energy and confidence that comes with losing weight and reducing your risk for diabetes.

Improve Your Health, Boost Your Energy

To help reduce your risk for diabetes, your goal in the YMCA’s Diabetes Prevention Program is to reduce your body weight by 5-7% and increase your physical activity by at least 150 minutes per week within the first half of the program.

For example, if you weigh 200 pounds your goal for the first half of the program would be to lose 14 pounds and increase your physical activity to what could be a brisk 30-minute walk 5-days per week.

Lose weight, boost your energy, reduce your risk for diabetes and improve your health for life! 

 

Did You Know?

  • Eating too much sugar does not cause diabetes, but being overweight is a risk factor.

  • People with prediabetes may not have any symptoms.

  • An estimated 96 million Americans aged 18 years and older have prediabetes.

  • And… 80% of that 96 million have NO IDEA they’re at risk.

National Institutes of Health research has shown that programs like the YMCA’s Diabetes Prevention Program reduces the number of new cases of type 2 diabetes by 58% overall and by 71% in people over 60.

West Cook YMCA and the National Council of Young Men’s Christian Association of the United States of America (“YMCA of the USA”) have made a commitment to collaborate with the nation’s YMCAs on efforts to support a national movement to increase awareness and take measures to prevent diabetes and its complications among groups at risk, and to help support treatment outcomes for individuals who have confirmed diagnoses or indications of prediabetes by promoting an effective lifestyle change. YMCA of the USA nor any YMCA offering the YMCA’s Diabetes Prevention Program warrants or guarantees any specific outcomes for program participants with respect to diabetes prevention.

 

HEALTHCARE PARTNERS

Rush Oak Park Hospital
loyola-university-health-system
hcf
Westlake Health Foundation