Women's Community Health & Wellness Facility

South LA

Applying a proven model or solution to a new issue or sector (e.g, using a job recruiting software or strategy to match clients to supportive housing sites, applying demonstrated strategies from advocating for college affordability to advocating for housing affordability and homelessness, etc.)

The project will respond to the health & fitness needs of women in South LA giving them access to an affordable full-service fitness facility in a safe & nurturing environment. 60% of U.S. women do not engage in the recommended amount of physical activity & 25% are not active at all. However, regular physical activity improves health, fitness, & helps to maintain a healthy weight, reducing the risk of chronic disease. Women of color have high rates of inactivity leading to higher incidents of obesity, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses. We are proposing the creation of a fitness center that will target women in the South LA area who are predominately African American and Hispanic. 68% of African American women and 62% of Hispanic Women self-reported that they are overweight or obese. The South LA community does not have a full-service fitness facility that services women of all ages that is financially and geographically accessible.

Women encounter many barriers to participation in physical activity such as embarrassment, intimidation & lack of body confidence. We will create an uplifting environment that will nurture & make members feel that they are a part of a supportive fitness community. We will assemble a staff of certified instructors that will offer group fitness classes & individual personal training. The fitness facility will be a life-changing facility by offering motivational speakers & intermittent workshops on a variety of topics ranging from finance to nutrition. We also hope to cultivate a relationship with a health facility so that we can offer health screenings. Additionally, studies show fruit & vegetable consumption is lower among African Americans & Hispanics; it is our intent to create a community garden that the members can choose to tend & will be able to harvest to take home. The facility will help foster improvement in mood and feelings of wellness in women in South LA.

Better health and fitness in women translates into better health for their families. Globally overweight infants & young children increased from 32 million in 1990 to 41 million in 2016. In the US 13.7 million children and adolescents aged 2-19 years are obese and those rates rise significantly for African American and Hispanic children to 22% and 25.8% respectively. Other studies show that a healthy lifestyle of the mother during an offspring’s childhood and adolescence was associated with a 75% lower risk of those children developing obesity. These findings highlight the impact of a mother’s health & fitness on their families. Our fitness facility will potentially affect the health and well being of hundreds of people living in South LA.

The vision for our fitness center is to create a place that is surrounded by an urban sanctuary that aims to inspire healthy connections with the community and the environment. The woman’s fitness center will serve to promote an ecosystem that creates a healthy mind, body, and community effort. The Fitness center’s primary focus will be on group classes and personal training. A secondary focus will be to address the lack of green space and the difficulty of buying affordable fresh foods. To address both concerns is to create a fitness center for all women and create a community garden that provides aesthetic appeal and fresh, healthy produce to all. The community garden will assist in financial savings to those unemployed and those with low incomes. Short-term goal would be to open the woman’s fitness center with group fitness classes first. Long-term goal would be in building out to include more equipment and spa services. The short-term goal for the community garden would be to implement 4-6 raised beds for growing. Long-term goal would be to gradually increase and include partnerships. The measure to define success would be implementing a gym software system that tracks memberships, retention, and a detailed workflow system that tracks gym and community garden performance. The outcomes will be those that create a strong community, interacting with our members and neighbors, and using technology to frame this revolutionary business model.

LA is the healthiest place to LIVE