Fit City
How Somerville became a national model of healthy living
SOMERVILLE - Pedestrians in this city of 77,500 stride onto bright, recently striped crosswalks. Bicyclists, who until this year navigated traffic aided by a single bike lane, enjoy 2 additional miles of designated lanes, and almost 4 more are planned. In school cafeterias, fresh produce has replaced canned fruits and vegetables, and the high school retired its fryolator. The Neighborhood Restaurant now serves wheat oatmeal waffles with bananas in addition to bacon and eggs. Budding salsa dancers step-two-three in a new Recreation Department class that costs just $10 for two months of twice-a-week lessons.
These scenes might seem to be mere background noise to the bustle of a diverse city of artists and immigrants, laborers and lawyers. Yet changing the background noise has placed Somerville in the vanguard of communities putting environmental and policy changes - rather than exhortations to modify individual behavior - at the center of their fight against obesity.
Five years after the city embarked on an ambitious collaboration with Tufts University called Shape Up Somerville to see whether systemic changes that encourage healthy eating and physical activity would help children stave off obesity, 10 communities across the country have begun testing whether they can replicate Somerville's success. In a separate initiative, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation plans today to name Somerville one of nine "leading sites" for a $44 million "Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities" program that will spread to 70 communities. The state expects to launch a wellness program informed by innovations in Somerville and elsewhere.
"We want the default behavior, the behavior that requires no additional money or significant effort, to be the healthier behavior," said state public health commissioner John Auerbach. "How do we achieve that? By making sure schools have healthy lunches in the cafeteria. Working with employers to create healthier work sites. Make it easy for people to walk or bike to school or stores. To do that means mobilizing a community, and that's what Shape Up Somerville has done."
Propelling the interest in Somerville is a simple statistic from the research of Tufts nutritionist Christina Economos: one pound. That is how much less weight 8-year-olds in Somerville gained over a school year than children in a control group. As small as the one-pound gap may sound, Economos said, it is a significant impact across a community where 44 percent of children are overweight or at risk of being overweight. The average youngster here gained roughly 15 percent less weight than the typical peer in the control group.
"If you sustain an intervention that prevents unnecessary weight gain through elementary school, middle school, and high school," Economos said, "that will make a difference."
An ounce of prevention
The John F. Kennedy Elementary School exemplifies Somerville's success and challenges as it serves healthier foods and takes steps - in-school corn-husking and taste tests - to familiarize children with new dishes. Seventh-grader Shawn Bulcao, 13, was certainly not alone in rejecting the medley of corn, zucchini, and tomatoes that more than one youngster labeled "gross," but he likes the salads served several days a week. "Every time they have salad, I'll eat it if it has meat," he said.
The city's schools, where two-thirds of students come from low-income families and half speak a language other than English at home, expect to purchase $50,000 of locally grown produce this year, up from $6,000 in 2005-06. Cafeterias that sold chips and sweets as lunchtime snacks in 2002 now provide only low-fat milk, juice, or water, with low-fat ice cream added twice a week. Potatoes, baked fries or wedges, are offered only once a week. Salads and fresh fruits and a "vegetable of the month" are staples.
"I think it's good, so I don't get fat," said eighth-grader Hallie Ottaviano, 13. "That's why I drink skim milk."
Gone are bake sales that competed with lunch. "When my daughter started kindergarten, she was rewarded with candy. Now when the kids get prizes it's pencils and stickers," said Melissa Haber, 39, a novelist and mother of three.
Haber, who once weighed 210 pounds, knows the difficulty of fighting obesity as an adult. Losing 55 pounds motivated her to serve on the new wellness committee at her children's school. "It made me excited about what Shape Up Somerville could do, particularly with kids," she said. "It's certainly easier to keep it off than take it off."
Making health accessible
Since Economos's original Shape Up Somerville project ended in 2005, the moniker describes ongoing efforts to make the city conducive to healthy living for residents of all ages. "This small experiment," said Mayor Joseph Curtatone, "has had huge impacts."
Somerville is both model and example of an approach whose importance was underscored in a recent Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation study that found Suffolk County residents with the least access to fresh produce, safe parks, and affordable places to exercise were the least healthy. Boston and Holyoke are among nine communities chosen by the Kellogg Foundation for a new "Food and Fitness" initiative focusing on environmental changes.
In Somerville, gardens established at the seven elementary schools help familiarize children with fresh produce. The Kennedy's garden club is planting spinach, radishes, beets, and chard in an outdoor cold frame. "When I dig I feel healthy," said Navdeep Maini, 11. "I want to have a green thumb."
The city has added two community gardens and a farmers' market since 2004. It has launched two community supported agriculture (CSA) sites where residents purchase shares of nearby farmers' crops. Last month Anthony Peltz, 26, picked up his final CSA order of squash and broccoli. "It actually forces you to have fruits and vegetables more often," he said. "Less fast food." Jadilma De Sousa, 38, a housecleaner from Brazil, serves more vegetables since coordinating a CSA in exchange for a season's share. "I didn't have kale before," she said. "I didn't know how it tasted, and I was afraid to buy it."
As a compact city well-served by public transportation and commercial squares, Somerville has the makings of a walkable community. The Linear Park, used by pedestrians and bicyclists, runs above the MBTA's Red Line Extension between Davis Square and Alewife, and a paved Community Path is also popular. Yet open space is scarce. A city that once boasted 17 trolley stops yielded to the automobile as McGrath Highway and I-93 made Somerville a shortcut to other places.
"We have these great squares. How do you incentivize people to walk or bike between them?" Curtatone asked. "We're not going to be the on- and off-ramp for Boston."
A city changing shape
Technical writer Rachel Dillon's bicycle commute to her job in Cambridge has improved with the additional bicycle lanes. "The bike lane is a clear marker that says, 'There are going to be bikes here. You should watch out,' " said Dillon, 25.
The new bicycle lanes and the restriping of 1,250 crosswalks since 2004 are simple infrastructure changes to encourage physical activity. The city has also renovated or rebuilt eight parks since 2004. It plans to build a bike-and-walkway stretching to the Charles River over the anticipated Green Line Extension. Redevelopment of Assembly Square, now isolated by I-93, will include pedestrian access to East Somerville.
For Nancy Lynch, 55, an administrative assistant in City Hall, Shape Up Somerville has removed financial barriers to keeping fit and helped her lose 10 pounds. She's among the 20 percent of non-union city employees taking advantage of a $200 subsidy to join a gym, which she couldn't otherwise afford, a benefit Curtatone hopes to extend to unionized workers. Lynch also takes the $10 salsa class. Climbing stairs instead of taking the elevator, now a City Hall fad, is free.
"I have more energy, and it helps you mentally too," Lynch said. "It's a big stress reliever."
Somerville's campaign belongs to a general zeitgeist that promotes healthy living and counteracts the fast food and sedentary lifestyles that make that difficult to achieve. So Suwat Akkmachatkun, co-owner of Lemon Thai, one of 17 restaurants that have won approval from Shape Up Somerville, was happy to work with a Tufts nutritionist to add steamed options to his menu as well as a "jungle curry" alternative to high-fat coconut sauces.
"The healthy thing is what people are looking for," said Akkmachatkun, 28. "It's a win-win situation." 