Andrea Davis's Blog
Physical Fitness & Justice / 06.27.08, 04:41 PM
I mentioned in my last blog that I had finished my Justice Project, which was about fitness disparities, specifically here in North Lawndale and the ways that places in the community (including Lawndale Christian Fitness Center, where I work) are trying to combat the injustices of services. I’ve adapted and abridged the paper that I wrote for that class for my blog, so please check it out. It’s long, but I think it’s worth learning about if you have the chance to read it or even skim it!
In the late 1990s the Lawndale Christian Health Center (LCHC) and Lawndale Community Church (LCC) was attempting to address the obesity epidemic and ensuing diabetes that they noticed among their patients, most of whom are lower income African American and Latino patients. Noticing the growing levels of obesity and diabetes the clinic wanted to encourage more than the handful of Health Support classes they were able to offer at the time so they started looking at fitness options for patients within the community.
There are a few parks in North Lawndale, including one of the largest city of Chicago parks, Douglass Park, located about 3/4ths of a mile away from the Ogden LCHC facility but residents in the area did not consider Douglass Park to be a safe place to engage in outdoor physical activity because nearby neighborhoods are areas of high crime and people are just not comfortable being outside themselves, much less allowing their children to get exercise at the park. If people actually did feel safe exercising outdoors in their neighborhoods, what would the options be during the winter in Chicago with the months of snow and cold weather? Ellis said that as LCHC looked for fitness options in the community there were no fitness facilities nearby on the west side – companies must not have seen enough economic benefit in neighborhoods like North Lawndale, with its average family income somewhere around $20,000 a year, near the bottom of the average income levels out of all the neighborhoods in Chicago, and fitness companies probably decided to bypass poorer neighborhoods here on the west side. There is an abundance of fitness facilities in Chicago as a whole, but they seem to be concentrated in the downtown “Loop” region and the North side of Chicago – areas that have much more economic wealth than west side neighborhoods like North Lawndale – probably a testament to this sentiment as well.
A study done by the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill has found in a national study that “individuals who live in economically advantaged neighborhoods, where the education level is high and the population predominantly non-Hispanic white, have greater access to both publicly funded and privately owned facilities and resources that promote physical activity.” While researchers conducting the study expected to see more equal distribution of public facilities like public swimming pools, parks, YMCAs, etc. including in disadvantaged neighborhoods, unfortunately these sorts of facilities are more likely in more advantaged communities than ones like North Lawndale and Little Village.
**A look at Theology
I think that the area of physical health and in particular physical fitness is one that is largely neglected by Christians. It seems that rather than searching the Bible and finding some biblical mandate for providing fitness facilities for the underserved, the founders of Lawndale Christian Health Center “simply” perceived a need in the community, had the resources to meet it, and so they did!
What does the Bible have to say about all of this? Well, there are really two issues here. There’s the issue of the Biblical mandate for physical fitness and then there’s the issue of the injustice because of the lack of equal distribution of access to physical fitness facilities. The Bible doesn’t seem to say a lot specifically about physical fitness, but in III John 2 John prays that the people he is writing to will prosper and be in good health in all respects, in addition to the prospering of their souls. I Corinthians 6:19 says “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit that is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” If the Spirit of God lives inside of Christians – the spirit of a perfect God – doesn’t that mean that Christians should keep their bodies as healthy as they can?
Being physically fit has so many benefits including weight management, chronic disease management, and increased energy level, to mention a few. And then, “love your neighbor as yourself.” If we Christians living in middle to upper class economic status and with relatively easy access to facilities for physical fitness really want to love our neighbors as ourselves, I believe that we should be willing to work towards seeing resources more equally distributed.
Another verse that talks about loving our neighbors speaks of the physical needs, in James 2:15-17, “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” Our Christian faith, our “personal walks” must be accompanied by action! And finally, “do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly” (Leviticus 19:15). This verse was probably talking about issues of justice in the courts, but it makes sense also in this context – and I think it’s striking that it says not to even show partiality to the poor. It says to judge fairly, not misrepresent justice, and I take this to apply to where services are available for different people. The economically driven business world tries to avoid equality of services, but all people have value and need for services and it is unjust for there to be so many opportunities for fitness in communities of the “great,” of those with money and resources, but not opportunities for the “poor.”
Sometimes now, especially throughout Mission Year, I feel like the church often neglects social services and certain kinds of justice. My eyes have been opened to this and it is hard to see. It is hard to see the continued resources poured into my community back at home in Iowa, when resources are already so prevalent there and I see so many needs here. Once during this year I had the opportunity to take a survey of my Iowa hometown’s parks and recreation department. The survey asked about my satisfaction with the programs and park offerings. I thought about all the beautiful, safe, though small, parks and open areas in my hometown and I told them I thought everything was good as it was. I couldn’t resist commenting saying that I think it would be neat to see some of the extra resources that my hometown has put into partnership, revitalizing a disadvantaged community in an urban area somewhere. I thought about how absurd that would probably sound to the parks and recreation department – why put resources elsewhere? Why don’t they take care of themselves? But I feel so strongly that we all need to work together as we share thing that we have.
Some areas (people and communities) have been blessed with so much – often more than they need – and other areas don’t have as much or have been deprived for years. I think it is just to place some extra attention on these areas to make things more equal for everyone. We complain about educational issues and how “those people” are like this or that, but we aren’t willing to do anything about it. We don’t have collective, shared concern for other brothers and sisters.
Major steps have been taken in communities near North Lawndale. Just 5 years ago even there were really no indoor fitness facilities in these areas. There are now actually facilities providing service here on the west side of CHicago. In response to the previously mentioned physical fitness needs that LCHC saw in their patients, the health center started a community fitness center within their original Ogden health clinic in February of 2005. The Lawndale Christian Fitness Center (LCFC) started small, with low fees of $15 month to month individual memberships and has grown in size of the machines and aerobics class offerings, but maintained the low cost of $15 for the 30 day memberships. LCFC really tries to reach out to the community and bring justice in this area by offering the rates so low and even having specials sometimes, where people can get more than one month for even cheaper.
In March of this year we had our most total visits in one month since the Fitness Center opened: 6,527 people came through our doors and took advantage of the services we offer at the Fitness Center! The LCFC, where I work doing paperwork, filing, maintaining the front desk, signing up new members, giving tours, etc., now offers 13 adult classes and 9 youth classes (for youth ages 6-17). These classes include Cardio Punch, Toning in Motion, COR-iffic, and for youth: Tae-Kwon-Do, Hip-Hop Dance, and Gymnastics. These classes are great because they give people the opportunity to be involved in structured physical fitness activity and they’re included in the $15 cost. There are also six treadmills, five elliptical machines, two stationary bicycles, a stair-stepping machine, a bunch of different individual strength-training machines, dumb-bells, and medicine balls. We don’t have personal trainers (which would increase the operating costs of the facility) but we always have a volunteer or staff member upstairs on the fitness center floor in order to help people out with use of the machines.
Every single day new people come in to the Fitness Center to sign up for memberships. They are always commenting about the affordability and how much it means to them to have a place like LCFC in their neighborhood! One woman, Maria, stopped me and just shared with me how much it means to her that this facility exists. She said that she was coming with her mother to the Health Center and noticed that they had a fitness facility. She has recently lost her job and she needs something to occupy some of her time and also to help her stay healthy and she started crying tears of joy when she shared with me how much this place means to her – and this was on her first day!
One thing that I have been able to personally do in order to help bring awareness and justice to the need for physical health and fitness has been reviving LCFC’s Healthy Church Initiative. The Initiative encourages local church congregations to become more healthy through physical fitness and I agreed to coordinate Healthy Church Initiative 2008! This means that I coordinate finding two North Lawndale or Little Village churches each month to which we can give two weeks of complete access to the Fitness Center facilities for free! Of course we also hope that some of the church members who come to use the Fitness Center will continue to use LCFC after their free weeks of access are finished. I’m really glad that I’ve been able to be a part of bringing even a small bit of awareness and justice to the community through this Healthy Church Initiative. I’m glad that someone came up with the idea long before I came to North Lawndale and I’m able to just be the facilitator, giving churches the opportunity to help their congregations become more physically fit in order to serve God better.
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That’s an awesome paper (from what you got to post), great perspective, and a lot of information I never thought of or realized! Thanks!!
By Tera / Jun 27, 05:05 PM / #
Andrea! I just wanted to let you know how exciting this is for me to read—I studied sport and exercise science in college, and really have a passion to address these issues that you have written about in your paper! I’ve also been assigned to Chicago for MY next year, so it’s really great to hear what’s been going on in your neck of the woods. Thanks for sharing the excitement! -Ruth
By Ruth / Jun 29, 12:28 AM / #