Fans of the 1978 flick "National Lampoon's Animal House" have a chance to meet one of its stars today - and maybe take a step toward improving their health as well.

The keynote speaker at Heartland Health's diabetes expo - scheduled to take place from 7:30 a.m. to noon at Missouri Western State University's Fulkerson Center - will be Stephen Furst, who as a teenager played the film's fraternity freshman, Flounder. Then 320 pounds, he adopted a healthy lifestyle after developing type 2 diabetes and experiencing other health complications due to it.

Mr. Furst is now a spokesman for the American Diabetes Association and has written a book called "Confessions of a Couch Potato," a humorous memoir about his challenges with weight loss and diabetes.

"He will tell his story, and I think he's going to be quite entertaining, quite inspirational," said Janis Brown, a nurse and certified diabetes educator with Heartland's diabetes center.

She added that the expo, which is free, will also offer health screenings, vendors featuring diabetes products and services, and a panel of Heartland physicians who will answer diabetes-related questions.

There are 23.6 million children and adults in the United States - almost 8 percent of the population - who have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. Ms. Brown said this area has an especially high incidence of diabetes and that increasingly, type 2 diabetes is being diagnosed in adolescents - another reason she believes Mr. Furst will be an appropriate speaker for the expo.

"We have someone this year who developed type 2 diabetes at age 17," she said. "He can speak from experience and from the heart about what it's like to develop this as a young person."

Erin Wisdom can be reached

at ewisdom@npgco.com.