Fort Benning to open wellness center aimed at overall health
Fort Benning will hold a grand opening for its new Army Wellness Center at 3 p.m. Monday at 7919 Marne Road, Building 9257, next to the Warrior Transition Battalion, the post announced Friday.
The Army Wellness Center hopes to provide prevention programs and services that promote healthy lifestyles to improve the overall well-being of soldiers, family members, retirees, and Department of Army civilians.
The center will be staffed with health educators and state-of-the-art equipment. The purpose of the AWC is to help its clients reach their desired health and wellness goals.
“The Army Wellness Center is a great facility,” said Maj. Gen. Eric J. Wesley, commanding general, Fort Benning and the Maneuver Center of Excellence. “We’re using this as the flagship opening of our comprehensive Performance Triad program. What the performance triad does is it brings an opportunity for people to live a holistic, healthy lifestyle, which improves performance and overall health.”
Wesley said that as a whole, the Army has been great at physical fitness, but it has been poor in elements such as nutrition and appropriate sleep.
“The Army, for years, has said that ‘sleep is for the weak,’ but science doesn’t say that. Science says that we need rest, and so with this program, if you’re working out well, you’re eating right and you’re getting decent rest, you can significantly improve your performance and mitigate against injuries and other issues.”
The center provides numerous services, such as metabolic testing, which measures a client’s resting metabolic rate and the amount of calories their body needs each day; biofeedback, which tests the amount of stress and teaches the clients how to manage that stress; body composition, which measures the amount of fat and muscle a client has; strength and flexibility assessments, as well as other health and wellness educational classes.
Mike Owen: 706-571-8570, @mikeowenle
This story was originally published January 27, 2017 at 9:40 AM with the headline "Fort Benning to open wellness center aimed at overall health."