About 60 people attended the event at the Orange Agricultural Institute Training Centre, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Orange Daybreak.

Co-ordinator and Orange chiropractor Dr Alison Bennett said the day centered around nutrition, exercise and motivation, with nutritionists Belinda Lee and Kate Yeo, naturopath Angela Duncan, personal trainer Anthony Ellison, Masterchef winner Kate Bracks and Olympic basketballer Shane Heal presenting throughout the day.

She said stress had the ability to manifest itself not only mentally, but physically, and she saw many cases at her practice involving stress-related symptoms.

“It increases certain hormones that can affect your nerve pathways, the way we absorb nutrients and our inflammatory processes, which can affect your recovery from injury or make you more vulnerable to injury,” she said.

"I just felt that really we’re reactive with our health and this was taking a proactive approach.” 

Mr Heal said people were interested to know how much he exercised now.

“I don’t live life like I did when I was an athlete,” he said with a laugh.

“As an athlete, you’re trying to keep an exact weight and eat enough carbs and cut back on fat – it’s a really strict lifestyle but you understand more about when to eat and how much and what your perfect weight is, and it gives you discipline as well.

“The key message is to find balance with what you enjoy and trying to stay active, which is harder the older we get.” 

Cheryl Hansen was one of the people in attendance and said she knew what she should be doing, but the summit gave her the motivation to put it into practice.

“The main thing I learned was about foods and food labelling and just because it has ‘organic’ or ‘herbal’ on it, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s legitimate,” she said.

“One of the examples was a $40 tablet which was basically chamomile when you can get that through tea.” 

Rotarian Peter Perriman said the event was consistent with the club’s ideals of supporting the community’s health and wellbeing.

“I think it’s just good to know what’s available and help ourselves – people are looking for alternatives and what they can do.”