EquityBlog

This afternoon, First Lady Michelle Obama announced the launch of the California FreshWorks Fund (CFWF), a $200 million public-private partnership loan fund that will support the creation and expansion of grocery stores in underserved areas across the state.

In an op-ed in today’s Roll Call, PolicyLink Founder and CEO Angela Glover Blackwell and National Grocers Association President and CEO Peter Larkin discuss how the national Healthy Food Financing Legislation (HFFI), CFWF, and similar programs across the country can help improve community health and create jobs. Here’s an excerpt:

The federal Healthy Food Financing Initiative — for which the departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and the Treasury have announced $45 million in available funds — uses federal loan and grant programs to leverage private capital and help grocers and farmers markets open new locations in underserved neighborhoods, providing access to healthy foods and much-needed jobs.

Other innovative approaches are also eligible to get healthy food to communities struggling without any available options. President Barack Obama has proposed $330 million for HFFI in his 2012 budget.

The power of this type of public-private partnership was recently highlighted when the U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp., a subsidiary of U.S. Bank, pledged its own commitment to HFFI, announcing that a substantial portion of its New Markets Tax Credit investments will be allocated for fresh food projects in high-need areas.

You can read the entire piece here, as well as this LA Times Letter-to-the-Editor from PolicyLink President Judith Bell on expanding healthy food access. See you in the comments section.

Statement on the passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 by PolicyLink Founder and CEO Angela Glover Blackwell. Ms. Blackwell also serves as advisory board chair of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity:

“The school cafeteria will soon be a more welcoming place now that Congress has finally passed some of the most important reforms ever to the nation’s school lunch program. Thanks to today’s passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, millions of children will soon be healthier, more informed, and less obese. For the first time in more than three decades, the bill will provide schools with a much needed bump in their food budgets – enabling them to buy fresher, healthier foods for all students. The bill also helps educate children about nutrition – a crucial step in battling the national childhood obesity crisis.

“The bill will particularly help black and Latino children, who have the least access to healthy food and some of the highest obesity rates in the nation. Congress should be commended for making a strong stand for healthy meals for all children. Every parent, grandparent, and teacher should smile when this bill hits the Oval Office desk for President Obama’s signature.”

“We have to make sure that no one is left behind,” says Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink and National Advisory Board chair for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity. In a conversation about the childhood obesity epidemic, Glover Blackwell stresses that “the equity agenda—just and fair inclusion—is America’s agenda, and it applies to health as well.”

On his always interesting Fast Lane blog, US Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today wrote about our Keeping Kids Moving: How the Federal Transportation Bill Can Help Stop Childhood Obesity event.

Sponsored by PolicyLink, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity, Transportation for America, and the Convergence Partnership, the event drew nearly 150 health and transportation advocates to the ballroom at the National Press Club in DC.

For more on the event, visit www.ReverseChildhoodObesity.org/KeepingKidsMoving

Here’s a clip from the DOT blog post. Click here to read the full piece:

People want options. They want to be able to be more physically active on streets that are friendlier to pedestrians and bicyclists. And when adults model physical activity, our kids see it, and they get it.

But the link between transportation and obesity doesn’t end there.

Also at yesterday’s meeting, Nashville’s Adetokunbo Omishakin talked about the more than 6,000 households in Nashville who don’t own a car and are not within a mile of a grocery store. At certain times a bus trip to a grocery store could take three hours round-trip. So residents buy food for their families at convenience stores or small groceries whose shelves can’t offer the healthy options of larger stores.

You see, it’s not just about improving sidewalks or bike paths. The assumption of the last half of the 20th century was that people would own cars. And because that isn’t true, people have been forced to make choices that contribute to the obesity trend.

That’s why, for example, our recent Urban Circulator and Bus Livability grants have been received so warmly.

This is about connecting communities. It’s about solving real problems. This is the kind of practical change the Obama Administration is delivering.

DOT Undersecretary Roy Kienitz speaking at the Keeping Kids Moving Event, July 15, 2010, National Press Club, Washington, DC

Today marks the release of the “F as in Fat 2010″ report by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. As the advisory board chair for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity, Angela Glover Blackwell contributed this commentary to the report.

Creating Healthy Communities for Everyone: The Time is now

By Angela Glover Blackwell

Where you live has a lot to do with how you live.

Some of us live in communities rich with job opportunities, good schools and resources such as parks and playgrounds, grocery stores selling nutritious food, streets safe for walking and transit options that promote physical activity. Many others do not. Predominantly black neighborhoods, for example, have few supermarkets, farmers’ markets or grocery stores where residents can buy healthy food. In many lower-income black and Latino communities, children have few safe parks, bike trails and public pools where they can play and burn off calories.

For every white parent who says neighborhood safety is a barrier to physical activity, four Latino parents say the same.

Poverty, race and obesity are often linked. Mississippi, the poorest state in the nation, has the highest obesity rate of any state and the highest proportion (40%) of obese children ages 10–17. More than half of Black children in the state are overweight or obese. Lack of access to healthy food may be partly to blame; in Mississippi, more than 70 percent of food-stamp eligible households must travel more than 30 miles to reach a supermarket. The South, the country’s poorest region, is particularly hard hit by obesity. Six other Southern states that rank among the poorest in the nation (Louisiana, Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and West Virginia) have the highest rates of overweight and obese children.

Research increasingly suggests that the places where people live influence dietary behaviors and affect health outcomes. For example, one study showed people who live near an abundance of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores (as opposed to grocery stores and produce vendors) have a higher prevalence of obesity and diabetes. The study found that a greater proportion of low-income people and people of color live in these environments. It suggests that improving the retail food environment may be one promising strategy for reducing the prevalence of obesity and other related chronic conditions such as diabetes that are hitting low-income people of color hard. Almost 43 percent of Mexican-American children and almost 37 percent of Black children ages 6–11 are overweight or obese, compared with 32 percent of White children.

By 2050, communities of color are slated to become the majority group in America. Already, more than 40 percent of Americans under age 18 are people of color. The continued economic vitality of the nation will depend on the contributions of this group; they must be healthy enough to lead. It is urgent that the nation begin improving the communities where people of color live now.

Fortunately, many local communities have begun creating models that address unhealthy living conditions. For instance, in Somerville, Mass., families, schools, local government, civic organizations and workplaces have collaborated on policy and environmental change through Shape Up Somerville.

Early evaluation showed the initiative slowed the rates of weight gain among first- through third-graders at high risk for obesity.

In Georgia, a Southern state that is grappling with the third highest percentage (37%) of overweight and obese children in the country, the Healthy Kids, Smart Kids program is making a difference. Developed by Dr. Yvonne Sanders Butler, the principal at Browns Mill Elementary and Magnet School in DeKalb County near Atlanta, the initiative brings about reform through an inclusive community engagement process involving students – the vast majority of whom are Black – and parents, teachers and other allies such as church leaders and local politicians. The program has lengthened the physical activity daily requirement and introduced more nutritious foods such as oatmeal, yogurt, and multiple servings of fresh fruits and vegetables. Some children have lost up to 50 pounds, and school absenteeism has declined, among other benefits. The program has really taken off: 19 schools in the region have implemented Healthy Kids, Smart Kids to date.

In the Red Hook area of Brooklyn, N.Y, a nonprofit group, Added Value, is working with young people to build more equitable food systems, involving them in farm-to-classroom programs and urban agriculture projects. Food grown on the urban farm is sold at a local farmers’ market that provides low-income residents with access to healthy food.

Change can happen by thinking more broadly and comprehensively. The federal transportation bill that is due for reauthorization presents another opportunity to re-imagine the nation’s communities. This bill has the power to create better health by guiding funding toward projects that promote walking and bicycling, and by making sure that underserved communities are connected to opportunity, such as jobs, health facilities and other essentials.

Ultimately, to build more healthy communities and make sure that all children have access to nutritious food and safe parks and streets, we must all become policy advocates. Learning from the examples that are beginning to proliferate across the country, we can create healthy environments for all.