[Music]
even though I have all these degrees and
even though I am the CEO of notorious
libera healthcare and even though that
feels like I've accomplished quite a lot
life wasn't always this easy before I
move on I am pretty sure that some of
you are wondering how to pronounce my
last name so if you must know the name
is GU GU okay so let's do a quick
tutorial I want you to repeat after me
GU GU no no you gotta do better than
that
Oh goo okay it's not that difficult
so Google means respect and akin means
from birth or from ages so you can
easily say that I've always demanded
respect since birth as a young kid eight
year or eight year old kid growing up in
the eastern part of Nigeria just in case
if you're wondering at this orange mound
accent
life was relatively normal until that
fateful day in 1967 that a civil war
broke out in the country everything
completely changed my life
was completely turned upside down we
became refugees moving from one refugee
camp to another refugee camp the war
broke out because the people from the
southeastern part of Nigeria were being
marginalized and they wanted attempted
to secede from the country to create
their own country called Biafra in the
British camp my younger brother got sick
he had diarrhea couldn't retain fluid
there were no doctors and there were no
hospitals to take care of him I
literally watched my one-year-old
brother die right before my eyes at that
moment I made a decision that I wanted
to be a medical doctor during the war
death was everywhere witnessed a lot of
carnage kids were starving malnutrition
and the war ended in three years over
two million people died during that war
after the war went back to high school
trying to complete school trying to zoom
normal life as you can imagine what a
normal life looks like after three years
civil war the war motivated me to study
hard because I wanted to be a medical
doctor while I was studying I wanted to
come just go to school in the West so I
started applying to schools in Europe
England and the United States I also
knew that I did lots of challenges
relative to
I decided to apply to schools that have
relatively low tuition I found three
such schools one was sure University in
Raleigh North Carolina the second one
was Marshall University in West Virginia
the third was sent Edward University in
Austin Texas
during that time the school tuitions
were about four thousand dollars applied
get accepted and now the problem started
how to raise the funds
I was working trying to raise some money
begging family members and relatives
trying to raise some money took me close
to a year to raise 2000 naira which was
equivalent of about four thousand
American dollars at the time finally
raised the money took my papers went to
the American Embassy the visa attendant
asked me which school do you want to go
to so I gave her my three letters of
admission and I asked her which school
should I go to she took a look at it and
she said if I were you I would go to
Shaw University so which I said why and
she said it's in the south the weather
is nice you'll like it there and that
was how that decision was made on
January 4th 1980 a landed at JFK
International Airport connected a flight
from LaGuardia to Raleigh North Carolina
Asscher University I enrolled in pre-med
biology others over the hope of going to
medical school took odd jobs to pay
tuition and maintain myself I was in a
hurry wanted to finish school so that I
can go back to Nigeria very quickly I
graduated in three years and realized at
that time that I've come to the end of
my rope with no money the opportunity to
go to medical school became a distant
dream I was upset confused didn't know
what else to do in fact I was
considering just going back to Nigeria
and I'm down there in the whole dream
and then the military coup of 1983
happened in Nigeria had no other choice
at a time
he's been said that when one door closes
another door opens unfortunately were
too busy staring at the closed door
hopelessly as I was debating my options
one of the professors at school
suggested the School of Public Health
and said as an alternative he said
although the training is a lot of
different I think that education will
help you ultimately when you get back to
Nigeria so I applied to schools of
Public Health I was accepted at Emory I
started to go to Emory in Atlanta during
my first year at Emory I took a course
in community health that course
completely changed everything I know
about Atlanta it exposed me to parts of
Atlanta that I did not know existed pure
abject poverty lack of quality health
care all imaginable health incidents
that we discussed by what we now know as
social determinants of health so what is
social determinants of health there are
the conditions in which the poor born
live grow aged there are the conditions
that are causing all the issues relative
to diabetes hypertension heart diseases
and even some forms of cancer I also
realized that even in a city like
Atlanta would be abandoned supply of
doctors and hospitals poor people were
still dying hopelessly and it dawned on
me at that time the Descent conditions
that I saw in Nigeria were really
driving my passion to come to the United
States to studies I can go back was
literally staring at me at a time I
decided that I didn't have to go to
Nigeria to make a difference I can start
right here and right now
so after completing my masters in public
health my focus
started to shift to us looking for ways
to truly begin to improve Community
Health I also started working in
hospitals in Atlanta at a time and then
realized that most of the patients that
we were seen in the hospital some of
their conditions could easily have been
prevented if did to better care of
themselves which brings me full circle
to where we started this conversation
our hospitals really responsible for
your health
we know that our health 80 percent of
our health is determined by non
healthcare related conditions such as
sucio economic conditions environment
health behaviors those are the primary
causes of health issues so let's take
diabetes as an example we have now
become the most obese country in the
world almost 40% of our citizens are
classified as obese in fact we have gone
from being about 15% obese in 1970 to
almost 40% today in 2014 so we do know
that our two-tenths contributes to
visitor since we could do to mitigate
obesity and that's exercise and diet
those are truly within our control so
let's take exercise for example so we
know that an average adult 18 and above
works about 4,000 to 18,000 steps a day
we also know that it takes 10,000 steps
a week to lose one pound so my ask is
regardless of what your routine is if
you're not doing up to 10,000 steps a
day maybe just maybe you can start by
increasing whatever your routine is by
additional 500 steps it can easily be
done he can in fact do it just by
working around
your neighborhood around the block of
your house so the second item that
contributes to obesity obviously is diet
and we do know that we have become one
of the highest consumers of calories in
the country in the world actually so
knowing that and also we know that we
have gone from 2,800 calories a day in
1961 to over 3600 calories the year 2013
we also know that it takes about 3500
calories to burn one pound of fat so
what I'm asking is if you can cut down
the caloric intake just by 250 calories
and maybe cut increase your exercise
output by additional 250 burning an
additional 250 calories we can truly
begin to shift our physical health and
we know that overtime caloric intake
coupled with exercise and compounded
overtime truly improves the overall
health status of individuals so if I was
thinking through all of this it dawned
on me again as a country and as a
society we wait till every new year to
make a decision and make a resolution
we're gonna live healthy I'm gonna
exercise I will watch my diet and by
February the goals are broken why don't
we just change that thinking a little
bit instead of waiting till every new
year to make those decisions how about
if we think of it and think of any new
day as a new year so to speak so as you
wake up the next morning
consider that your new year your new
and begin to adopt some of these changes
that we're talking about today so you'd
have to wait till next year to get to
the point of exercising or watching
whatever you eat in fact if you just
wanna watch what you eat I don't know
how many of you drink soda but just
eliminating one kind of so it's about
hundred fifty so calories and that
compounded over time results in better
health before I close I'd like to
summarize with a small story about a
friend of mine named Robert Robert is in
his late 40s married Robert has two
adorable daughters and Robert has a
history of heart disease in his family
one day at church Robert went to a
health fair that was conducted by a
local health system in the community
they took his blood pressure his blood
pressure was extremely high it was 200
over 100 they obviously told Robert to
go directly to the nearest emergency
room Robert went to the emergency room
and they gave him medication to
stabilize his blood pressure and also
told him that he needs to go see his
doctor Robert went to see his doctor the
doctor did all the physicals and came
back and said to Robert unfortunately
you have to make some drastic changes in
your life want to reduce weight so you
can reduce your cholesterol by the way
you're borderline diabetic at the same
time Robert took that message very
seriously and started making some
changes in his life unfortunately there
are a lot of Roberts out there and even
in this room as a matter of fact that
we'll hear some of those messages and
literally do nothing so to paraphrase
the Chinese philosopher named yang think
to know and not act is tournament to not
know him at all now that we all know
little school and act thank you