Café Refuses to Contribute to Statewide Obesity Issue

Throughout the entire state of Missouri, few counties rank as low as Boone County in regard to obesity. Businesses like Sumits Hot Yoga, Pure Barre and Nourish Café and Market strive to help keep that number low by offering residents of Columbia, the county’s largest city, healthy lifestyle options.

Nourish Café and Market, which opened last June, provides customers with healthy dining choices. Kalle LeMone and Kimber Dean are the café’s owners. They are two women whose common goal is creating meals without gluten and processed sugar.

“We believe in transparency, which is why we list all of our ingredients so customers can dine with confidence,” LeMone said.

Healthy lifestyle options were important to LeMone when beginning the business venture.

“I cook organic, healthy food at home and simply wanted a place that I could trust every ingredient in Columbia. So I figured I would do it,” LeMone said. “I always wanted to open a business, but healthy wellness is my passion.”

Growing up, LeMone and her family stayed in shape because they enjoyed playing sports and being active. They were not concerned about healthy eating.

“Hamburger Helper and canned green beans was as healthy as it got,” LeMone said.

LeMone leads a different lifestyle today, one more focused on what types of food she consumes and how that food is prepared.

“It’s really important to me to eat clean and even more so now that I have a son,” LeMone said. “We are always in the kitchen together as a family making food from organic, nutrient-rich ingredients. We are a really active family.”

LeMone and Dean considered several things before opening Nourish Café and Market, including the type of customers they wanted to attract.

“We knew we’d have a range of customers, from those who had high expectations for healthy food, those who didn’t care to know much about healthy food but just wanted it, and also those who have been brought in against their will,” LeMone said.

Some people are forced to change their eating habits because of obesity and certain illness that negatively affect their health.

An unhealthy diet and little to no physical activity can lead to obesity according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Obesity can affect some by diminishing energy, but it can also cause serious health defects.

According to a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America, Missouri ranked 10th in adult obesity in the U.S. in 2015. The rate of adult obesity rose from 11.3 percent in 1990 to 32.4 percent in 2015.

“It just doesn’t have to be that way, but I truly think people don’t know and have misconceptions about healthy eating,” LeMone said.

According the report, Boone County has one of the lowest percentages of obese adults.

Adults with a body mass index of 30 or more are considered obese. Twenty-seven percent of adults in Boone County meet that definition, according to the report.

Nourish Café and Market strives to educate people on making better food choices for not only dining but meal preparations, too. LeMone and Dean accomplish this by providing wellness consultations and workshops on healthy eating and living a healthy lifestyle. On Sundays, customers can come in and create their own meals for the week with clean, nutrient-rich food.

“People are only becoming more aware of how important it is to take care of themselves,” LeMone said.

Customer Melissa Mars said she has seen a change in her eating habits and health lifestyle since Nourish Café and Market opened.

“It made me feel good about myself that I was being healthy while eating there,” Mars said. “I have been trying to watch what I eat lately, and I exercise when I have time. I find myself being better about both of these things.”

Hope Knopf, a customer of Nourish Café and Market, said she thinks Columbia will see a rise in health stores and exercising facilities because more people are becoming aware of the issue with obesity.

“There definitely will be more places popping up in Columbia regarding physical fitness and clean eating since more people are seeing the serious side effects of obesity,” Knopf said. “ I chose to start watching what kind of food I feed my body with simply because when I eat food that is bad for me I can feel my body reacting negatively.”

As people are exposed to healthier food on a regular basis, the more comfortable they will be with eating it, LeMone said.

“The more mainstream it becomes, the more people will incorporate into their lives,” LeMone said. “For some reason, it’s embarrassing for a Midwest man to get a salad or order the healthier option around his friends. It’s so silly and I think it will change.”