Zoo event educates kids to stay healthy

Many of the first 500 people who went to the Alexandria Zoo Saturday morning were met with a surprise at the entrance.

They all received a free tickets, as well as a map, for the third annual Just for the Health of It Day Camp and Why Animals Kick Butts scavenger hunt, which led people throughout the zoo to 10 animals.

The Central Louisiana Area Health Education Center sponsored both events, which educated kids about the dangers of tobacco, obesity and cancer.

Gerrie Phillips, a zoo board member, handed a map to 5-year-old Kaytelyn Evans, who was quick to let her know how excited she was.

"I've never been to a scavenger hunt before," she said.

Within about an hour, Kaytelyn was "having the best time," her mom Farra Evans said. "And we didn't even know this was going on."

By then Kaytelyn had reached the white tigers.

De'Sean Harvey volunteered at that exhibit and gave kids like himself one fact about the white tiger and one fact about tobacco.

Each station along the way did the same and gave kids a pin after they listened. After collecting the 10 pins, a backpack filled with goodies awaited them.

Harvey talked about how white tigers are excellent swimmers and one of the few cats that love water.

But he pointed out that the use of tobacco can lead to shortness of breath by clogging lungs with tar and other chemicals, which also can lead to lung cancer. That makes physical activities like swimming, running and riding bikes harder or impossible.

He then asked kids to come up two at a time and knock down stacked red plastic cups with a water gun. The two towers of cups represented a good lung and a bad lung, and the bad one was weighted to fall down last.

It illustrated that "the good lung will always win," Harvey said.

"So make sure you stay tobacco-free at all times," he told kids.

The day camp was near the tigers at the center pavilion. Activities there included a demonstration of healthy foods and how to prepare them and education on cancer prevention and early detection.

There also were demonstrations of tumbling, cheering, hula hooping and other physical activities.

LaNeshia Gammage and Renea Sizemore were there with the American Cancer Society and the Rapides Foundation to talk about Colon Cancer Awareness Month.

Kids could walk through an inflatable colon with one normal side, and one side with Crohn's and Polyps, which can lead to cancer.

"When I tell them this is inside your body, they're like 'Whoa,'" Sizemore said.

The blow-up was just an attention-getter for an important message that Gammage said they want to instill in kids early on. Screenings are crucial to early prevention in many forms of cancer, like colon cancer, she said.

Christy Mabou from CLAHEC organized the event, and said they make it happen through volunteers and sponsors, like AmeriHealth Caritas of Louisiana, who paid for the first 500 zoo entrants.

"It's really a big community event," Mabou said. "We don't want anyone to come and have to pay for things … we're really doing this to better all health."

Parents like Farra appreciated having a lesson to reinforce what Kaytelyn learned when her grandfather recently died of lung cancer.

"She tells us all the time 'I don't want to smoke. I don't want to drink because it's just nasty,'" Farra said.

And as Kaytelyn learned the Pink Flamingo station, "it can make your hair nasty," she said. "Curly, nasty hair."

She also found out the consequences for a pink flamingo would be "their feathers would turn black."

And with the help of her mom, Kaytelyn remembered one more reason.

"Your lungs can turn black if you smoke … they won't even let you breathe."