Making Our Neighborhoods Healthy
Most of us are aware that lack of physical activity and poor nutrition are leading causes of the obesity epidemic that has swept through the United States in the last twenty years, an epidemic that especially affects lower income communities of color. We also realize that obesity, in turn, is a major contributor to poor health, especially health problems such as asthma, depression, diabetes, and heart disease; and, further, that these chronic health conditions are adding to the rapidly rising cost of health care in the United States.
What might surprise many people, however, is that a major risk factor for obesity is the neighborhood where you live. How can this be? What does neighborhood have to do with lack of physical activity or poor nutrition? Isn’t lack of physical activity a matter of laziness and poor nutrition a matter of an undisciplined sweet tooth? No, not really. While individual choices have something do to with it, researchers are increasingly finding that environment is a primary factor in determining who becomes obese.
A recent study by Community Health Councils, Inc. found that there are only a little over 1 acre of park and recreation area per 1,000 population in South LA compared with over 70 acres per 1,000 population in West LA. And there are four times as many miles of bicycles lanes in West LA compared with South LA. Put this together with the fact that there are 8.5 liquor stores per square mile in South LA compared with slightly less than 2 liquor stores per square mile in West LA. And there are only 6 farmer’s markets in South LA compared with 16 in West LA.* These stark discrepancies in physical environment make it much more difficult for families in South LA, and similarly under-resourced urban neighborhoods, to make healthy food choices and get adequate physical activity.
The Jubilee Consortium is making a contribution to reversing these discrepancies, working with community members to promote health, offer alternatives to violence, develop leaders and train health advocates. The Jubilee Consortium currently offers 25 weekly exercise classes (aerobics, yoga, boxing and dance,) 4 healthy cooking classes and several health education workshops in Hollywood, Inglewood, Long Beach and South Los Angeles, with over 800 men, women and children attending these classes each week. For a small donation, families can come several times a week to exercise in an enjoyable, safe, convenient environment.
While the Jubilee Consortium provides additional physical activity opportunities on a direct scale, it also participates in the larger movement of changing the entire landscape of under-resourced communities like South LA. Not too far in the future, the Jubilee Consortium will unite with other like-minded community groups through a coalition convened through CHC. It will gather with local doctors, city planners, bike-lovers, basketball coaches and partner with community leaders to bring more bike paths, green space, and farmer’s markets to their neighborhoods so that we all have an equal chance to make healthy choices.
*Park, Annie, Nancy Watson, and Lark Galloway-Gilliam. South Los Angeles Health Equity Scorecard. Community Health Councils, Inc.: Los Angeles, CA. December 2008. Available at: http://www.chc-inc.org/userimages/South%20LA%20Scorecard.pdf