Lynn Food and Fitness Festival draws a crowd

LYNN – Despite chillier-than-average weather and dark clouds, dozens of people spent the morning on the Lynn Common dancing, running and jumping while learning about ways to live a healthy life at a citywide food and fitness festival.Members of the Lynn Food and Fitness Alliance, a collaboration between health-oriented government and nonprofit organizations in Greater Lynn, hosted the festival. The alliance’s goal is to decrease obesity, and Saturday’s festival gave people concrete examples of how to do so, said MaryAnn O’Connor, the public health director for Lynn.”We’re demonstrating all the opportunities in Lynn to do something and how it’s not difficult to get out and move and have some fun,” she said.O’Connor said the city is struggling with a high obesity rate. That’s a problem especially in the schools, where many children choose to follow their taste buds than read nutrition labels, said Mike Geary, the health and wellness director for Lynn’s public schools.View a photo gallery.”A lot of kids don’t know instinctively about nutrition,” he said.But on Saturday, children like 7-year-old James Bragan were learning. He and his mother, Kelly Bragan, had stopped at a booth put together by The Food Project, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that teaches youth in urban areas about sustainable farming.Koushick Barua of The Food Project had the Bragans guess how many teaspoons of sugar were in a regular soda (A total of 11 teaspoons).The answer surprised Kelly Bragan.”I know that soda has a ton of sugar, but 11 teaspoons. That’s crazy,” she said.Nearby, Lynn resident Khalen Khattar was on his way to find free plantings of herbs and vegetables with his wife, Rima Khattar, and their 7-year-old daughter, Tiana, and 23-month-old son, Danny.While munching on a free apple he received from another booth, Khalen Khattar said it’s not hard to encourage their children to eat healthy when they learn about nutrition in an active environment.”Especially like planting,” he said. “Once you get them to plant something then they’re going to try it.”Other children at the festival chose to burn off what they had eaten at the booths by jumping in a moonwalk castle or dancing to music in front of the gazebo.But the festival wasn’t just for children. Beverly resident Linda Ackerman, who is 64, was interested to learn about a North Shore program for the elderly: Program of All Inclusive Care of Elderly, or PACE, while she visited the festival.She said she thinks it’s important to hold more community events emphasizing healthy living.”Today, the way people really eat, there’s too much obesity, including myself,” she said.Ackerman said her 62-year-old brother, Richard Nelson, has diabetes, which stemmed from being overweight, and has lost some of his toes as a result of the disease.”So this is good for him,” she said.O’Connor, with the city’s public health department, said that poor diet and a lack of exercise can have lasting impacts on people’s health.”Obesity causes long-term illnesses that can be avoided just through healthy living,” she said as she handed out water to people running or walking a 3K also put on by the festival.The race was two times around the Lynn Common. Nine-year-old Eijah Ikejiere, of Ingalls Elementary School, won for his age group.”Ever since I was a little boy, I always liked to run,” he said.Ikejiere said he knows he needs to eat well to fuel his athletic body.”I try to eat healthy: apples, bananas, broccoli,” he said.Ikejiere crossed the finish line alongside Lynn resident Nick Otto, who was pushing his 14-month-old son, Moses, in a stroller. Otto said festivals like these exemplify why Lynn is a great place to live.”We just love Lynn and think it’s a great community and want to be a bigger part of it,” he said.Amber Parcher can be reached at [email protected]