Revere gets wellness grant

REVERE – Get ready Revere: Massachusetts General Hospital is about to find out how fit you are and exactly how healthy you eat.The community-wide food and fitness initiative will be paid for with one of 10 grants totaling $1 million handed out to the city and other communities across the state.”These programs will help Massachusetts residents make healthy choices and build a stronger Commonwealth, which is exactly what Mass In Motion is all about,” said Gov. Deval Patrick.MGH operates a local facility and plans to conduct the health survey with Revere CARES, a local organization that has focused previous initiatives on teenage drug use.Based on the results of the fitness survey, MGH and CARES will draw up an “action plan” for helping Revere residents get fitter.The Mass In Motion program is funded with state tax dollars and money provided by health insurance companies. It is aimed at reversing state public health statistics indicating more than half of adults and one-third of middle and high school students are either overweight or obese – conditions that place those residents at higher risk for heart disease, stroke, diabetes and certain kinds of cancer.In its first five months, the program has launched regulations requiring calorie posting and menu labeling at chain restaurants in the state and the promotion of Body Mass Index calculations for all schoolchildren in Massachusetts.Revere is already working with Project Bread to reverse childhood obesity trends by offering nutritious breakfasts in local schools.Project Bread’s research into hunger in Revere indicates one child in three in some sections of the city “live in a family unable to meet its basic need for food.”The organization’s free summer meals, served through local schools like Garfield Elementary, provided with help from the schools, save parents an average of $3 a day per child on lunch costs. Project Bread Education Policy Director Elaine Taber said the savings are important at a time when basic food prices are rising.Only a fraction of Massachusetts public schools, Garfield among them, serve breakfasts offering high fiber, low sugar and fruit. Its efforts to start students off every weekday with a healthy meal will get a district-wide boost with $12,000 allocated to the School Department by Project Bread.Project Bread spokeswoman Rita Guastella said the healthy meals are aimed at counteracting childhood obesity spurred on by an overabundance of processed, high fat food in adolescent diets.Project Bread and the city feed about 1,300 children a day during the summer at other sites across the city. The organization also sponsors The Walk for Hunger and provides millions of dollars each year in privately donated funds to 400 emergency food programs in 128 communities statewide.