MARYSVILLE — With Marysville in the top tier of Snohomish County cities with overweight adults, a new effort is being launched to help families get healthier.
The city is one of 18 communities and areas selected to be part of a national effort to battle obesity and improve the health of children and adults.
Called Pioneering Healthier Communities, it is a project of YMCA USA with funding from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It’s very exciting; we’re so fortunate,” said Wendy Bart, executive director for the Marysville YMCA. “I think the ripple effect could be huge for Snohomish County.”
Marysville is one of 75 communities that applied to join the program this year. Spokane was the only other Washington city selected for the project.
Marysville plans to bring together representatives from the city government and parks department, the Marysville School District, the Tulalip Tribes, the Snohomish Health District, Community Transit and physicians to work on the program, Bart said.
Some group members will go to Washington, D.C., later this year to hear about what steps other communities have taken to improve nutrition and activity levels, she said.
This is the second effort launched in Marysville with the goal of getting people more active and improving nutrition.
Marysville was the first city to sign up for Healthy Communities, a project of the Snohomish Health District. In August, public health officials announced that a specialist from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will come to Snohomish County to help encourage similar efforts in other communities.
Marysville’s Pioneering Healthier Communities program will complement, not compete with, Healthy Communities, Bart said.
The efforts to increase health and fitness levels follow a health district study, released in May, showing that adults in Marysville, Arlington, Stanwood and Darrington had significantly higher obesity rates than adults in other parts of the county.
Health officials said they weren’t sure why, but it could be because adults in these communities have to drive more than those in more suburban or urban areas.
“We’re delighted that the YMCA of Marysville was selected for this prestigious grant,” said Suzanne Pate, Snohomish Health District spokeswoman. “We’re happy to see the community take the initiative to fight obesity.”
The federal government is spending $1.4 million this year on the Pioneering Healthier Communities project, said Dr. Wayne Giles, who directs the adult and community health division at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
The effort was launched because of the national crisis with obesity and chronic diseases it causes, such as diabetes, he said.
“For change to happen, it has to happen at the local level,” Giles said.
Communities that have joined the effort since it was first launched four years ago have already seen results, he said.
In Pittsburgh, many preschool and after-school programs offer low-cost fruits and vegetables to low-income students, Giles said.
A superintendent in Tampa Bay, Fla., decided to require all elementary school students to get at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day. “They’re in the process of making that statewide,” Giles said.
“That’s a nice example of the types of success we can see relatively quickly,” he said, steps that are needed “if we’re going to combat the epidemic of obesity.”
Bart said that changing people’s habits will take time. And projects undertaken by other communities, such as building more sidewalks, “come with a huge price tag.”
But nearly everyone can begin taking small steps for change, such as walking for 10 minutes a day or making a habit of finding the farthest parking space from a store’s front instead of the closest one, she said.
Projects undertaken by other communities aren’t always expensive and some can be done relatively quickly, she said. These include finding local grocery stores to promote a healthy recipe of the week or tips for involving kids in preparing a meal.
In addition to Marysville and Spokane, the communities and areas joining the Pioneering Healthier Communities project this year are:
Ann Arbor and Battle Creek, Mich.; Chesterfield, Darlington and Hartsville, S.C.; Colorado Springs and Longmont, Colo.; Fargo, N.D.; Moorhead, Minn.; Itasca County, Minn.; La Crosse, Wis.; New York City; North Attleboro, Maine; Omaha, Neb.; Providence, R.I.; Rockford, Ill.; San Francisco; western North Carolina; and Woodbridge, N.J.
Now beginning its fourth year, Pioneering Healthier Communities now has a total of 64 participating communities.
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
@2. Breakout Header:Fight the fat
For more information on Marysville’s Pioneering Healthier Communities project, call the Marysville YMCA at 360-653-9622.
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