Service members, families and friends gathered at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (JBPHH) Fitness Center May 8 for a Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) sponsored Health and Wellness Fair.

The fair featured several booths throughout the JBPHH Fitness Center, which served to inform service members and their families on the different resources available to them on base regarding healthy living, nutrition and fitness.

According to Benny Miguel, JBPHH Fitness Center manager, the fair is an effective way to show service members the types of resources available to them when it comes to healthy living and fitness.

"We want service members to know what health and fitness options are available to them, whether through the military or outside vendors," said Miguel. "Where we have the Naval Wellness Center providing nutritional guidance, we also have private companies providing additional information and resources on how to improve their fitness. We want our community to be aware of healthy living, what that means for them and the programs available for them that'll point them in the right direction."

Equipped with plastic models of fatty tissue, jars of tar accumulated from a year of smoking and body mass index analyzers, Tracy Navarette, health and wellness director for Navy Health Clinic Hawaii, and her team set out to teach and inform patrons on how to approach healthy living from different angles during the event.

"It's not always just about fitness," said Navarrete. "We really need to look at what people are doing with respect to mind, body and soul...You have to ask yourself, 'how good am I mentally, how good am I physically?' 'Are we really balanced?' And that's what we want to promote - a balanced lifestyle."

To supplement the nutritional and fitness information that was available throughout the booths, live Zumba and Hula Fitness, fitness classes available at JBPHH Fitness Center, demonstrations were also displayed for attendees throughout the event.

For Airman 1st Class Jason Michaels, an attendee at the fair, the event helped give greater insight into various aspects of the health and fitness knowledge he already had.

"I recently went through a health class offered on Hickam and I found a lot of the booths really expanded on the stuff I had learned," said Michaels.

After visiting each of the booths available during the event, Information Systems Technician 1st Class Renee Ingram, assigned to Commander Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific, said she walked away with new perspective on what it means to live a healthy lifestyle and the importance of applying those lessons today.

"I think healthy living is very important because the way we live helps us plan for our future," said Ingram. "If we don't plan our fitness and our health goals for today, we won't be able to survive for the future or teach our kids what it means to be healthy, and we need to be healthy for them."

In the end, Miguel said when it comes to service members, health and fitness plays a critical role in helping them accomplish their mission.

"It's important that we promote health and fitness to our service members because on a military perspective it increases our readiness when it comes down to warfighting capabilities," said Miguel. "We want to make sure that our Airmen, Sailors and Soldiers are fit to fight."