Keeping Pace of Fashion : Hospital Sends Patients Window-Shopping in MainPlace/Santa Ana for Exercise

St. Joseph Hospital is luring foot traffic to the MainPlace/Santa Ana shopping mall.

Starting July 5, St. Joseph and MainPlace began inviting the public to exercise for fitness while touring the indoor mall before the stores open.

The MainPlace Pacer’s Club is similar to programs begun in recent years at other county retail centers. For instance, Humana Hospital Westminster co-sponsors a morning exercise program at Westminster Mall, La Palma Community Hospital co-sponsors constitutionals at Buena Park Mall and UCI Medical Center co-sponsors walks at the City shopping center in Orange.

Those familiar with the programs say the malls benefit by drawing consumers in to do a little window automatic shopping as they proceed along the walking courses. The hospitals benefit by acquainting the walkers--many of them elderly retirees--with their full range of services.

The programs are attractive to participants, the sponsors said, because they provide a climate-controlled exercise environment free from smog, traffic and barking dogs. Also, the camaraderie gives them an incentive to keep coming back.

Mecca Carpenter, director of health promotion services at St. Joseph, said the MainPlace Pacer’s Club provides the hospital with “another way of reaching out to the community.”

On Mondays and Wednesdays, she said, a fitness instructor employed by the hospital will demonstrate stretching exercises and sport-walking techniques.

Also, once a month, Carpenter said, the hospital will give 8:30 a.m. lectures at the mall on varied health topics. And everyone who registers to join the club will be put on a mailing list to receive hospital newsletters.

So far, she said, about 22 walkers are turning out each morning.

Storekeepers have indulged in a chance for a little self-promotion: Several stores and restaurants offer discounts to Pacer’s Club members who show “proper identification”--a button with the mall’s peach-and-teal emblem. The buttons, mall representatives said, are primarily intended to identify members for security purposes in the mall’s pre-opening hours.