Food and Fitness Collaboration
City Connect Detroit leads efforts to make healthy living options reality for Detroiters
While the city of Detroit is facing well-documented fiscal problems, too many of its residents are facing physical problems. Due to challenging obstacles that restrict access to healthy food and proper exercise facilities, too many Detroiters are overweight and sedentary.
Detroit ranks consistently high on the Men's Fitness magazine annual rankings of the 50 fatest U.S. cities (it was Number 1 in 2004). Detroit was also rated the fourth most sedentary American city in a 2007 Forbes study.
Into this high-caloric fray comes the Food and Fitness Collaboration, a diversified group of public, private, governmental and non-profit organizations under the umbrella of City Connect Detroit. Following a two-year planning period funded by the Kellogg Foundation, Food and Fitness has created a workable plan to increase Detroiters’ opportunities to obtain fresh fruits and vegetables and make it easier to exercise.
“The goal is to really have affordable, accessible, healthy food for all people in Detroit, and safe and viable places to recreate and have physical activities,” said Laurie Ryan, vice president and senior consultant for City Connect Detroit.
The ramifications of failing to reach this goal are frightening.
The medical costs of treating obesity-related diseases in the United States were upwards of $147 billion in 2008 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each year, 112,000 people die from obesity-related causes and obesity is directly related to an increased risk of chronic diseases like Type 2 diabetes, cancer and heart disease. The CDC estimates that Type 2 diabetes alone will afflict one in three Americans born after 2000.
The Food and Fitness plan was submitted to Kellogg for partial funding earlier this month. Much of the plan is based on systemic change.
“There would be a lot more coordinated activism around some of the policy and systems changes we are proposing,” said program coordinator Nikita Buckhoy. “So people may not see things on the ground immediately. Policy and systems change take a while.”
If approved, however, there could be certain quick changes on the city’s landscape. For example:
- Bike lanes on city streets: “Detroit is one of the few cities that doesn’t have lots of designated bike lanes,” Buckhoy said. “We want bike lanes not just for recreation, but for folks to bike to work more.”
- Safe routes to schools: “If kids can safely walk to schools, that’s physical exercise,” said Ryan. “And what does it take to do that? It takes the police to be involved. A lot of parents don’t want their kids to walk to school because they’re worried about them.”
- Food Movers: One objective of the plan is to sustain this popular state pilot program of roving vehicles selling fresh produce in city neighborhoods. “It’s kind of like the ice cream trucks only it’s fruit and vegetables,” Ryan said.
Ryan said that there were several highly achievable policy and systems reforms among the plan’s goals and objectives. Among them are:
- Reforming laws and regulations that serve as barriers to bringing new grocery stores into the city.
- Establishing DPS local food days where fresh food is brought in for school luncheons and implementing the DPS wellness policy that would increase student physical activity.
- Increasing limited public transportation opportunities to get to grocery stores.
- Coordinating the activities of city recreation centers, YMCAs and schools to provide better exercise and recreational opportunities. “What if they all worked together? They have the same goals,” Ryan said.
City Connect spent more than two years on the Food and Fitness framework because the Kellogg Foundation wanted an in-depth, exhaustive plan. City Connect brought together leaders from throughout the city and heard from residents at neighborhood meetings and through surveys distributed and collected by volunteers.
“Kellogg challenged us in that way,” Ryan said. “They wanted this to be very thoughtful and data-driven, so they gave people a long time to do it. They also recognized the importance of a whole litany of people being involved – from neighbors at the grassroots level to top community leaders from all sectors. Part of the planning process was solidifying, engaging and working with this collaborative group of people. Over 800 residents had input.”
It was an impressive group, said Tonya Allen, vice president of program for The Skillman Foundation and a member of the steering committee at City Connect Detroit.
“What I’ve been most impressed with is the richness of the collaborative – how City Connect has pulled together a variety of stakeholders – people who work for government to neighborhood people and people like the Black Farmers Alliance,” she said.
Ryan said that City Connect realizes that implementing change in a time of government austerity was not easy.
“But it’s not all about money,” she said. “It’s about some simple things. How much does it cost to buy canned beans, chips and Twinkies at the corner gas station? It costs a lot. So what if you were able to buy some tomatoes with some other kinds of fruits that you could augment the beans and the chips with?”
But she said that the collaborative was not trying to be food Nazis.
“We’re not saying quit eating canned beans and chips. We’re not advocating how people eat in that sense. We’re just saying bring these other things into your diet because of the long-term impact.”
Ryan said that City Connect truly appreciates the Kellogg Foundation’s support of Food and Fitness, but that other funders would be required to bring more of the plan into fruition. She knows it is an uphill struggle.
“It was going to be hard even before these difficult times. We know that crime contributes to that. We know that the whole disinvestment in Detroit contributes to that. The low-income nature and the low tax base in Detroit contribute to that. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t have the things in your life that drastically improve it.”
The entire Detroit Food and Fitness collaborative plan will be available online at www.cityconnectdetroit.org .
— Tom Schram
