This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, April 12, 2013 - Dear Beaconites -- Fit City, a Beacon health project, kicks off publicly with a story today and events this Sunday at Central Baptist Church and next Sunday at New Sunny Mount Missionary Baptist Church. But this is a journey that's already been underway for several months at the Beacon. We hope you'll come along as it continues.
As a news organization, our job is to report significant issues, trends and developments in our community. That's what we're doing in Fit City, which will focus on obesity and particularly on the disproportionate impact of this health problem on African Americans on St. Louis' north side.
But we're doing this journalistic work in ways that break the mold of traditional news coverage. Rather than just dispatching reporters to cover the problem, we're working closely with those involved to understand and help solve the problem.
The journey began several months ago with a proposal to the Missouri Foundation for Health. The foundation, we knew, was no longer interested in simply funding health reporting, as it has in the past. The new grant was aimed at fostering more direct connections with those who experience health problems and those who try to solve them.
It's not the appropriate role of a news organization to impose solutions. But it's very much our role to unearth insights, spread understanding and lay the groundwork for progress. We want St. Louisans to enjoy better health, and we hope Fit City can contribute to that end. Taking the lead in meeting this challenge are Beacon health editor Sally Altman, associate editor Bob Duffy, health reporter Bob Joiner and Public Insight Network analyst Linda Lockhart. The Public Insight Network also contributed funding for community engagement.
As Sally explained, the Beacon initially expected that the first stage of Fit City would involve hosting small group conversations in the target neighborhoods, perhaps in restaurants or barber shops. Then we would report what we learned.
But neighborhood residents, we discovered, consider barbershops to be semi-private spaces. They find obesity a painful conversation. And so we turned to churches -- safe places where people are used to talking about difficult subjects.
At Central Baptist, the Rev. Dr. Alice Price found the idea a perfect fit with health programs already underway. At New Sunny Mount, the Rev. Clyde Crumpton felt the same way. Health has a spiritual component, the ministers noted.
Working with church leaders and volunteers led to further changes in approach. They've seen well-intentioned experts come and go before, gathering information and proferring advice without fully respecting the actual experience of their congregations and their neighborhoods. Better to let experience take the lead.
And so, the kickoff events this Sunday and next look quite different than what we expected when the project began. Church members, neighbors and the general public are invited to share their perspectives, to learn more and to get some very practical assistance.
Schnucks will donate lunch and share recipes designed to be tasty and healthy. Nurses for Newborns will provide nutrition counseling. Its health workers find obesity and malnutrition in the same household or even the same person; they know these problems must be addressed at or before birth.
The YMCA at O'Fallon Park Rec Complex will teach exercise routines for home and work. Grace Hill Health Centers will offer blood pressure screenings. Also involved in this and future activities are the Washington University Institute for Public Health, 100 Black Men, the American Heart Association and the National Association of Black Cardiologists.
"Future events will be based on what we hear," Sally explained. "We'll respond to needs identified by the community." This partnership approach will give us a deep understanding of the stubborn problem of obesity -- far deeper than what we might learn just by talking to the usual array of experts and victims.
Along the way, we'll be reporting what we learn so you can understand what's at stake for the entire region and what might be done. Meanwhile, we'll be doing what we can to connect with those whose lives hold the key to understanding and solving the problems at hand.
Sincerely,
Margie