POSitivity Festival 2008 exists to provide DC residents with a system of support for healthy living and to showcase a diversity of practical individualized options for greater health, happiness and peace.

Vision

On September 6th, 2008 Washington, DC metro area residents will learn and experience Healthy Living in Many Forms. 7 aspects of health will be presented - Active Health, Nutritional Health, Spiritual Health, Financial Health, Environmental Health, Happy Living, and General Health - in an effort to expand DC resident's thinking about what is a healthy lifestyle and to offer practical strategies and tools for better health outcomes.

To honor the importance of Healthy Living:

Washington, DC has never comprehensively identified and explored healthy living through a cultural event until now: DC residents have enjoyed health fairs on campuses and in communities; however, we have yet to unite several aspects of healthy living to promote peace, POSitivity and a healthy DC community.

To unite in respecting the many definitions of a healthy lifestyle:

Awareness of the range of health options is critical to a healthy society. POS Fest is a multi-cultural, multi-generational festival promoting the value of various aspects of health and peace. It will foster cross-pollination of healthy choices and enhance attendees by affirming their individual and collective self. Novel styles and stress outlets will be introduced: teenagers to meditate, parents to budget, and seniors to recycle.

To support organizations and businesses:

POS Fest empowers and supports organizations and businesses that are advocates for providing healthy living alternatives. POS Fest will allow residents of the Metropolitan Area to be aware of the shareholders in this community that have a personal interest in their quality of life. POS Fest will also allow theses advocates to a reach a broader audience.

To legitimize healthy and peaceful living as a communicative, social form of life:

Mortality from heart disease, stroke, and cancer has continued to decline in recent years. Infant mortality, one major determinant of overall life expectancy, declined through 2001 and has changed little since then. Of concern for all Americans is the high prevalence of people with unhealthy lifestyles and behaviors, such as insufficient exercise and overweight, which are risk factors for many chronic diseases and disabilities including heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and back pain. In 2004-2005, 3% of the non-institutionalized population reported having serious psychological distress. In contrast, POS Fest will highlight positive health options provided in this community and showcase the possibility of personal change and its immense cultural and communicative importance.

To invoke Peace of Self:

Washington DC's POS Fest will reinstate the district as the healthy options and community building capital of the world. We quote Dr. Orison Swett Marden, the author of Cheerfulness as a Life's Power: We lift ourselves by our thought; we climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always, everywhere - your idea of what you long to attain - the ideal of health, efficiency, success.

Nutritional Health

The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS) of 2000 indicates that 68.1 percent of District residents do not eat enough fruits and vegetables, while an average of 76.8 percent of people nationwide do not eat enough of them.