Video: A Quick Minute with Gwen Remembering Ofield Dukes

A Quick Minute with Gwen Remembering Ofield Dukes

By: Ryan Duncan

In this installment of A Quick Minute with Gwen, Gwen McKinney, President of McKinney & Associates Public Relations, remembers the Dean of public relations, Ofield Dukes, who passed away on December 7th, 2011. His life, and his legacy, will always live on and always be remembered.

Be sure to read more about Ofield Dukes and his indelible impact on the public relations profession in our previous blog posts: Tribute to a PR Icon & Real PR Power.

Tribute to a PR Icon

Tribute to a PR Icon

By GwenMcKinney

  

My post on Ofield Dukes on November 10th was an enduring tribute to an iconic force who made a difference in so many people’s lives.  I celebrate that those words were not posthumously delivered. 

Today,  I join many friends and colleagues in mourning the passing of Ofield who made his transition after a period of illness.  I repost my message knowing that Ofield has left an indelible impact!  For that, let us miss him but celebrate that he was here.

Confessions of a Foodie: We Are Not What We Eat

Confessions of a Foodie:
We Are Not What We Eat

By: Gwen McKinney

When Team McKinney decided we’d dive into National Food Day by raising our voices in the blogosphere, I immediately proclaimed, “I’m in!”

As an evangelical member of the Weight Watchers (WW) Lifetime circle, I have forged a relationship with food that is a lifeline to good health, a relatively streamlined body and joy. Food, like weight management, is a journey. It requires a commitment first and foremost to self. You must honestly zero in on why you eat, how you eat and what you eat. The journey need not be punctuated with denial “diets” and punitive food plans that ebb and flow as the scales tilt north. You can eat well, eat often and eat deliciously even as you drop pounds.

The multisensory passion of good eating gives me something to look forward to from one meal to the next. The Wednesday Food Section of the Washington Post is among my “must reads.” New recipes are cherished treasures. I collect them like jewels. And as a frequent flyer on Epicurious.com, there are always more ways to prepare my favorite foods than I have time to create or eat. The extravaganza of planning, shopping and preparing for a dinner party is almost as fun as the guests. Food is my friend, my salvation and an adventure with each gastronomic foray!

But back to Weight Watchers. It works with unparallel success. This is not an ad for WW. National Poster Child Jennifer Hudson is doing that just fine without me. In fact, she recently opened a weight loss center in Chicago that is primarily targeted to African American women. That makes the point about our community’s need to reassess its relationship with food.

Since Weight Watchers rolled out its phenomenally successful ad campaign featuring the sleek, sexy and seventy-pounds-lighter Hudson, new legions of wannabe smaller Black women have been stepping up to WW scales. My weekly WW meetings have been transformed from sparsely attended motivational lectures into standing room only Amen sessions. Sadly, if the stats prove true, the vast majority of those new recruits will fall off the wagon, trading sustainability for the old and easy way out. Weight management is not just about the scales. The centerpiece is behavioral change. And that is a bitch.

Role model or marketing scheme?

Hudson’s phenomenal reach to African American women surfaces a swelling epidemic. African American women of all ages and economic groups suffer the highest rate of obesity compared to any other demographic. Four out of five of us are considered overweight or obese. With that distinction comes all the evil ills: heart disease, diabetes, cancer and premature death.

Overweight women raise overweight children. The challenge of childhood obesity has become a national state of emergency. Our client, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, embracing the issue as a health equity initiative, has targeted 2015 to reverse the epidemic.

The notion of being “big boned” or voluptuously healthy in line with our African roots have long served as a rationalization for the status quo. Culture, genetics and glandular conditions are not the culprits. Admittedly, as a forthright foodie who shed four dress sizes over a 14-month period, I will always struggle with weight management. Food and caloric intake are almost incidental to the challenge. At the core of a slender body is affirmation of me. I am not what I eat. I am what I am determined to be.

I end here with the verb to be. We are our own best solution if we affirm we can BE. Counsel for good health care? More appropriately, it is a clarion call for Self-Care. Drawing from a campaign that McKinney & Associates launched for the California Department of Public Health, I ask every African American woman to embrace food as a key to life. But command your body as your temple to BE Well.

BEcause we’re worth it.

Video Series: Teachable PR Tips from Howard University's CapComm Lecture Series

Video Series: Teachable PR Tips from

Howard University's CapComm Lecture Series

McKinney & Associates is proud to be teaming up with Howard University's CapComm series in providing weekly guest lectures for their communications/public relations students. During these classes, which take on a variety of public relations aspects, our team provides the students with valuable #PRTips, which we have recorded and can now share with you. We will be unveiling a different lecture each Friday, so we hope you enjoy the lesson and share the knowledge even further!

The following three videos are from the 1st CapComm class conducted by McKPR President, Gwen McKinney. During her introductory lecture, Gwen provides tips on the most important aspects of client relations, and how to conduct and the value of a SWOT analysis.

Be sure to stay tuned for more posts from our next lecture next Friday!