HEALTH & WELLNESS || Childhood Obesity in Mississippi, from page 15
March 25 - 31, 2010
mats for community exercise classes. Burt has worked in many formal office settings, including a stint in the late 1980s when she worked for former Gov. Ray Mabus. Burt, 60, is the project director and principal investigator for the Jackson Roadmap to Health Equity Project. She eagerly gives a tour of the space that has become central in the city’s efforts to fight obesity. At the front of the building, tiered Styrofoam pots connected by PVC pipes contain romaine lettuce, strawberries, bell pepper and tomato plants. The plants sit in front of tall glass windows as the afternoon sunlight streams in.
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Burt has created a hydroponic garden—similar to a greenhouse—in hopes of teaching the community how to grow their own food. “I was thinking about how we could do something to help sustain our work,” Burt says. “We want everything we try to do to increase the status of health in the community, and anyone can do this—it’s a simple system.” Funded by a $1.5 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Jackson Roadmap to Health Equity Project started in 2006 as a community initiative to combat obesity. In 2000 a group of representatives from
the University of North Carolina, W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Jackson State University held a discussion addressing one central question: Why do African Americans get sick and die sooner than other groups of people? The discussion focused on Mississippi and the correlation between poverty and obesity rates and that conversation was the catalyst for a community steering committee that created goals and strategies to improve health for lower-income and predominately African American communities in Jackson. “The idea was to talk to the community as opposed to people coming and
thinking for the community,” Burt says. “[T]he goal is to institutionally change things that affect people’s health—not just do a program that lasts for a minute, but something that can institutionally change how communities operate.” Ultimately, the steering committee formed Roadmap to Health to make a systemic change in local schools. The steering committee chose to focus efforts at Johnson Elementary School, Brinkley Middle School and Lanier High School because they feed into one another. The steering committee then decided to change eating habits from the top down, starting with the food services workers who are responsible for feeding students. “We have food-service workers who cook for kids nine months out of the year, and if they aren’t healthy, that probably isn’t going to translate to good health for our children,” Burt says. “That’s when we started to approach our project schools and ask the food-service workers how they felt about their own health, if they thought the community was healthy, and how they felt about improving their own health status.” Burt discovered that the majority of the workers felt poorly about their health and lifestyle habits, but many worked two fulltime jobs and could not afford a gym or the time to exercise. The project organizers decided to bring personal trainers to the schools and provide fitness classes at the Roadmap building during the summer, free of charge. The training program was also extended to students in the project schools. “Inability to pay should not be a reason for people not to have good health,” Burt says. Once the training sessions started, Burt says the food-service workers reported having more energy and feeling better overall, which trickled down to the students. “The folks who now prepare the students food are role models to them,” Burt says. “Now when kids go through the food-service area in the morning, they see their food workers working out. And now when students go through the cafeteria line, food-service workers, who now look good, can say to a kid in a legitimate way, ‘Why don’t you have a salad today?’” Ernest Jackson is one of the personal trainers who works with the food-service staff and students at the project schools. A former YMCA manager, Jackson says foodservice workers look forward to his visits every morning. “Those women are die-hard health freaks now,” Jackson says. “If I’m five minutes late, they are already warming up and ready to go.” Jackson also trains students at Johnson Elementary and Brinkley Middle School three days a week for an hour at a time. The training is meant to supplement the physical education requirement for public schools, but Jackson says that recess and PE are often the first things cut when schools need more time to improve test scores.