The importance of nutrition, exercise and social interaction for people living with HIV/AIDS will be the focus of June’s HIV Forum. David Morris, an HIV and Hepatitis C Nutritionist at a health center in the metropolitan Boston area, will speak at the forum on Tuesday, June 13, from noon to 1:30 pm at The Institute for Community Research (ICR), 2 Hartford Square West (146 Wyllys St), Suite 100. The event is free; lunch will be provided and advance registration is required.

Morris feels personally connected to the AIDS pandemic, a field in which he has been involved since the disease first emerged. “All my friends were dying,” he says. Since studying nutrition while at the University of Florida, he has worked at major teaching hospitals, health centers, long-term care facilities and hospices around the United States, emphasizing the importance of good nutrition for people living with HIV/AIDS. At the beginning, he says, “I wasn’t sure what to do, but felt that nutrition and complimentary therapies were needed. I was working in a hospital that wasn’t accepting HIV positive/AIDS patients, so I was mostly on my own.”  Through lecturing and writing articles about HIV and nutrition, Morris now educates service providers and people living with HIV/AIDS about simple ways to stay healthy. “A lot of providers may not know about nutrition, but to me it’s one of the most important parts of dealing with HIV,” he says.  “When people get depressed, they isolate themselves, don’t exercise, and don’t eat right. This brings down their overall health.” Five years ago, Morris started a social group, which is now self-sustaining and serves between 400-500 people.  

At the forum, Morris will offer recipes for healthy, protein-rich food that meets the nutrition needs of people living with HIV/AIDS, and that can be prepared at low cost. He will discuss cooking techniques as well as food safety and sanitation, which are especially important during the summer months. He will also give a general overview of  “how providers can incorporate nutrition and exercise into helping their clients deal with heartburn, fatigue, diarrhea, neuropathy, nausea and other symptoms that people living with HIV/AIDS confront.” Most importantly, Morris says, he will give motivation to service providers and interested members of the public who attend the forum to “move towards a good life with many possibilities, through a good meal plan, exercise, and being social.”

This is the final lecture in the Spring 2006 series of forums organized by The Institute for Community Research and the Connecticut AIDS Education and Training Center with support from Gilead Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim. The Hartford HIV Forum meets from noon to 1:30 p.m., on the second Tuesday of each month from September through June. The goal of the forums is to give the local community the most up-to-date information on current topics in AIDS prevention, treatment, research and care. To register for the forum, call the Institute for Community Research at 860-278-2044. For more information about the series, contact Kim Radda at The Institute for Community Research at 860-278-2044 ext. 285.

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