Weymouth receives $110K grant to promote healthy eating and active living

Weymouth, MA – September 22, 2014 – The Weymouth Health Department announced today that it has been awarded a $110,000 grant to be paid over the next three fiscal years from the Patrick Administration.  Weymouth will receive $30,000 in grant money for fiscal year 2015 and $40,000 each for fiscal years 2016 and 2017.  The award is part of more than $1 million in Mass in Motion Municipal Wellness and Leadership grants awarded to 22 programs across the Commonwealth.  The grants are designed to promote opportunities for healthy eating and active living in the places people live, learn, work and play.  Mass in Motion is a program of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

“These grants enable cities and towns to make healthy eating and active living easier for people to achieve,” said DPH Commissioner Cheryl Bartlett.  “The grantees are working to make the healthy choice the easy choice by ensuring the availability of healthy affordable foods and promoting opportunities for physical activity.”

The grant funding will be used to assist Weymouth in creating and sustaining changes that make it easy for people to eat better and move more.  Back in 2009, Weymouth was among the first communities to launch a municipal wellness initiative and build a coalition to point residents towards a “Healthy Wey”.  Already the coalition has succeeded in starting a regular farmer’s market, creating safer routes for children to walk to school, and recruiting local restaurants to offer healthy, affordable meal options.  

“A big part of our work has involved getting people to think differently about what they eat and how much they move,” says Valerie Sullivan, Wellness Coordinator for the Town of Weymouth.  “We promote healthy options for cooking and dining, and we also encourage exercise through group fitness and everyday low-impact activities, like walking and bike riding.”  According to Sullivan, the next steps for Healthy Wey will include investigating a townwide Complete Streets policy as well as recruiting local neighborhood markets to expand their healthy food and beverage options.

“Healthy Wey has been bringing people together to create a healthier town for the last five years,” says Weymouth’s Mayor, Susan Kay. “The more we’ve done to make our community healthier, the happier our residents have become.  With this grant, Healthy Wey can continue its work, and Weymouth can continue building a healthier, stronger community for everyone.”

The Mass in Motion Municipal Wellness and Leadership Initiative enables cities and towns in Massachusetts to implement local policy, systems and environmental change strategies to prevent and reduce obesity and the chronic diseases that result from being overweight. Interventions will focus on healthy eating, active living, and promotion of healthy and safe physical environments.  The initiative is led by municipalities with the creation of a multi-sector partnership to develop and implement the community-level strategies.

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle that includes regular physical activity, and the consumption of healthy foods is important in maintaining a healthy weight and reducing the risk for chronic disease and associated risk factors, including hypertension, heart disease and stroke, diabetes and some cancers.  Through Mass in Motion, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health is working with cities and towns across the Commonwealth to create conditions that make it easier to be active and eat healthy food.