To Island health advisory council guru, Dr. Ginny Mantello, well-being is a holistic affair, involving a number of critical factors
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Growing up in India, Dr. Ginny Mantello was greatly influenced by the holistic medical approach of both her mother and father.
“My parents always emphasized good nutrition and exercise,” Dr. Mantello said. “My mother was an allopathic physician and my father taught me the art of yoga and meditation at a very young age. So even though medical education was a big emphasis in my house and in my family, the importance of supplementing that formal education with spiritual technique was just as great.”
Mantello, a neuroradiologist who received her subspecialty training at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she still continues to practice, is a senior member of the American Society of Neuroradiology, has served on numerous radiology panels, and has been involved in many citywide radiology review courses throughout her career. She currently serves as wellness liaison for Staten Island University Hospital, and is the director of health and wellness for the office of the Borough President, a role which allows her to take her holistic vision of the mind and body to residents across Staten Island.
“My role as a wellness liaison in the community actually happened by chance,” Mantello explained. “My daughter, who was a student at Staten Island Technical High School at the time, asked me to help her put together a meditation, nutrition, and fitness program for the school’s Health Week. In doing that project with my daughter, I realized that my background in neuroradiology had a strong connection to other areas of health and wellness field, so, I started reading more about it and restarted my journey back into the mindfulness of meditation.”
Mantello got involved in her other children’s schools too, hosting seminars and participating in health fairs at PS 3 in Pleasant Plains.
“I would talk to people in the community, and realized very quickly that they did not have much knowledge about nutrition,” she said. “After a few years of research, I presented my vision of a Wellness Center for the borough to someone in an administrative capacity at SIUH. Soon after, we presented an integrated medicine pitch to the hospital—a take on both traditional and holistic medicine that feeds the patient as a whole: mind, body, and spirit. They liked the concept.”
Mantello immediately put wheels in motion.
“We started with an employee wellness program at the hospital,” she said. “They have a huge group of employees, about 6,500 in total, so we thought that if they could lead by example, then the word would get out and borough residents would follow suit.”
The program, launched two years ago, has extended to include a number of wellness incentives, including a website that allows employees to access information on topics such as healthy nutrition, yoga, meditation, Weight Watchers, smoking cessation, as well as community outreach programs. In April 2013, Mantello collaborated with personal trainer Tony Aviles to launch a “Slim Down” program for hospital employees and also procured a 1199 workplace wellness grant that allowed a number of hospital employees to participate in a free 12-week “Commit to be Fit” challenge. When Staten Island Borough President James Oddo was elected last year, he reached out to Dr. Mantello to see if she could take her initiative borough wide.
“Health is a big part of his platform,” she said. “After we connected at the SIEDC Health Fair, he told me he would like to bring this program to other hospitals and small businesses throughout the community, allowing us to work on various medical issues and problems.”
A Health Advisory Council was formed this March and started meeting weekly to discuss Staten Island’s most compelling issues and to find ways to promote awareness and prevention techniques.
“In the medical community, prevention is something we’ve moved away from,” Mantello said. “With all of the advances in medicine and medical care, we are able to prolong life, but are still in the midst of a global epidemic of obesity, and the rates of chronic disorders like diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers are skyrocketing. And our community in Staten Island is in the red; we have much higher numbers of incidence than the rest of the city, so there’s a lot of work that needs to be done.”
Dr. Mantello and Borough Hall’s Health Advisory Board have decided that the best way to get that goal accomplished is to partner with hospitals and educational institutions to teach borough residents about better health habits. In one initiative, students at Staten Island Technical High School will monitor their soda intake and measure the impact when they cut the sugary beverages from their diet.
“There was a study that came out of the University of Chicago which found that when teens mentor other teens, compliance increases and the effects are more dramatic,” Mantello said. “So the idea here was to have the students take an active role together on this study. But I think that’s a big part of health liter
acy; if you can break it down to the cellular level and show young people what happens to their bodies when they make these sim- ple changes, and what wrong foods and the environment are doing to our DNA, a difference can certainly be made.”
Mantello is planning a number of other initiatives too, includ- ing the launch of a health and wellness website for Borough Hall, which will serve as a place where residents can explore wellness activities and concerns, and even assess the quality of their own health online.
“There are five key areas that need to be addressed when you’re discussing health and wellness,” she said. “Diet, tobacco use, exercise, weight control, and stress need to be outlined and assessed. Do you use tobacco? How much exercise do you need? Do you need to change your eating habits or find a better method of stress management? There are all topics that residents can explore on the site and through many of our initiatives.”
A health fair has been scheduled by Borough Hall for June 7 at the Staten Island Mall, and other events like blood drives and free mammogram screenings have been taking place for the past several months.
“One of our main goals is to focus on adolescent and youth issues, including obesity and substance abuse,” said Mantello. “Women’s health is a big focus, too, and we’re working to put together some basic food and exercise guidelines for residents to access and follow. Eating out is such a big part of our social lives and if you take a few precautions, it can be a healthful experience. Ask for dressing on side, take half of your portion to go, and ask your server not to bring the bread until the meal is served. Good health begins with good choices, and it can be as simple as starting with small choices like that.”
For Mantello and staff, the effort is all a part of enriching lives.
“People ask me how local government can help to achieve these health goals, and it does have a major role to play,” she concluded. “Together, we can enact policies that support a healthy environment and get parks and recreation, local agencies, and school districts involved in the process. I think there’s a lot of work to be done here, but the reality is we have a community that is very close-knit, so this is the perfect environment to develop such a movement. It’s exciting to think that we can have an impact, and the best part is the gift that each willing participant gets: health.”
