To help promote food and fitness the King County Food and Fitness Initiative was formed in 2006 after Seattle was chosen as one of nine communities participating in a $3 million, 10-year initiative financed by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The foundation is part of a group of six national foundations working together under the name of Healthy Eating Active Living Convergence Partnership.

The Kellogg program is based on "helping people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations."

The foundation is to discover the underlying issues leading to childhood obesity or chronic obesity, said Erin MacDougall, a public health instructor of health services.

"Issues are things such as lack of healthy fresh food or lack of safe places for people to be active," MacDougall said. "There are very complex societal issues that are leading to inequitable access for people to be healthier and make healthier choices."

Two West Seattle neighborhoods were chosen as focus communities to benefit from the grant, Delridge and White Center. The King County Food and Fitness committee said the reason for both neighborhoods qualifying is because they both demonstrate a commitment to collaboration and a capacity to transform the food and fitness environments in the community.

"Delridge and White Center have the highest instance of diabetes related fatality and local Delridge leaders recognize this issue," said Maggie Anderson, program coordinator for the Food and Fitness Initiative.

The community should understand this is a 10-year project and they've finished the first year of their two-year planning period. After the planning period they will then have eight years to implement the plan within the two communities.

This summer and fall several people from the groups supporting the initiative will go out into the community to engage community members in the brainstorming of what will be needed in creating a successful plan. Ideas of creating P-Patches, access to more Farmer's Markets, educating the community and giving them outlets to be more physically fit and involving food and fitness in youth curriculum are just a few ideas that have been thrown out at past community meetings.

"We'll be successful not necessarily by inventing new stuff to do but by weaving together, starting with current efforts and making sure that they weave better," said Birnie. "There's a lot of stuff already going on in our community such as miles and miles of walk-able trails that our communities have helped to build, and how do we make them more welcoming and usable."

Birnie said they hope to be able to write up the final community plan by December so they can submit it by the grant's deadline in January of 2009. Once the plan is submitted the Kellogg Foundation will decide whether to fund or not fund the program.

The King County Food and Fitness Initiative still needs to communicated to people in the areas though various community activities, including the upcoming West Seattle Street Fair.

On July 7 the leaders of the initiative will present the plan to the Seattle City Council.

"One of the main messages is understanding the underlying systems that support or don't support the outcomes we are talking about," says MacDougall. "So it's so much more than just educating people on how to shop for healthy foods but it's really about what's supporting an unhealthy food system. And part of this initiative is getting residents involved in understanding the systems that are creating an inequitable outcome. The other part is that we're hoping to see major policy changes in the state and local levels to really change those underlying systems. No policy can be formed without the grass root engagement."

For more information or to get involved visit www.kcffi.org to sign up for their newsletter or e-mail Maggie Anderson at maggie.anderson@kingcounty.gov, Derek Birnie at derekb@dnda.org or Erin MacDougall at erin.macdougall@kingcounty.gov.

Allison Espiritu may be reached at 932-0300 or allisone@robinsonnews.com.