The Mayor’s Fitness Challenge “on ice” took place last Thursday at Veteran’s Memorial Ice Rink.

By Patrick McDonagh

Other than his busy family, there is no one else hovering around the mayor of Somerville at the ice rink. He helps his son clean up after hockey practice. I imagine before our meeting to see at least someone within close proximity of the Mayor holding a clipboard speaking at inaudible speeds about the Mayor’s schedule. My stereotypical imagination of political figures might be jaded by binge watching the Netflix series House Of Cards.

Instead of a fitted suit donned by the likes of Kevin Spacey, Mayor Joe Curtatone’s red sweatshirt and khakis makes for an approachable, less intimidating figure. He greets attendees of the “Skate with Joe event” by sizing up their feet for skates. I choose a size too small. Curtatone switches them out for a larger size 10. Never having worn ice skates, I appreciate the company of a three-year-old whose skill level is on par with my own.

The event, held at the Veteran’s Memorial Ice Rink on April 2 as a part of Somerville’s month long Annual Mayor’s Fitness Challenge, is incentive for healthy, community centric, physical activity. The event’s kick off on March 28 at Somerville High School provided opportunities to learn self-defense moves, ballroom dancing steps, yoga skills, and to play basketball, among other activities.

Tables set up around the gymnasium showcased local organization’s materials, giveaways, and programs; with all organizations’ products and services centering on community wellness.

Before we step on the ice, Mayor Joe Curtatone discusses motivation for involvement with the fitness challenge: “The event is meant to bring continued awareness and attention to being active. We created Shape up Somerville with our partners at Tufts University in the Friedman School of Nutrition more than ten years ago as a community based, environmental approach, to reverse the trends of childhood obesity in the [current] generation but we wanted to take that approach to healthy living for the whole community.”

The Shape Up Somerville (SUS) study at Tufts University was a hugely successful initiative; one of the first studies of its kind to show that environmental changes and systemic changes have a statistically significant impact on BMI. Mayor Curtatone proudly shares the program’s accolade as an inspirational role model for First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign. Excitement around the study’s promising results spurred Curtatone’s move to create for it a more permanent office in the city of Somerville; solidifying and institutionalizing newly discovered opportunities as the office of SUS.

SUS avoids the directly instructive approach to lifestyle guidance, and for good reason. It is not as effective as their current proven strategy of providing choices to live healthy. “Shape up Somerville is successful because it is not an attempt to tell you how to live,” Curtatone says. “But it is an understanding; that we as policy makers, who make decisions every day, create systems around active living, transportation, open space, recreation, food access, food policy that cultivate environments; [environments] that influence how we live, our behavior, and outcomes.”

Sometimes the seductive allure of a form fitting couch and copious amounts of Netflix is a much welcomed, non-athletic activity. SUS helps to make sure this activity does not become a day job, but in a way that is unobtrusive. Unique fitness opportunities are made more accessible through localized events such as the Mayor’s Fitness Challenge.

Shape Up Somerville coordinator Erica Satin-Hernandez outlines the program’s current direction as a facilitator for healthy community activity: “There are lots of physical activity opportunities around the city in all sorts of places, but I think helping bring people to a habit change is effective. Helping bring people to discover new forms of activities they didn’t know they liked or that they didn’t know were possible; activities they didn’t know where available in the city and so accessible. We focus a lot on the built environment, on policy and systems change, but part of that journey is also working with people; showing people new opportunities that are right in their backyard.”

I’m hunched over a three-year-old holding a box for support on the ice. We share the box. Joe effortlessly skates by encouraging the small child, who was recently roused from an afternoon nap to skate with the Mayor. Her attitude regarding waking up is one of extreme distaste, as is my own. Her thought process that followed soon after waking was probably similar to this: What is a mayor and why is he on ice? Will this be like Frozen on Ice? Is Elsa a mayor?

Joe’s encouraging motions with his hockey stick are met with the little girl’s laughter as she engages in an impromptu to game of catch the mayor while struggling to keep balance. An hour of free skating earned points for the Fitness Challenge, but this activity for some was not a competitive challenge.

“It is called the ‘challenge’” Erica says “but it is really open, really fun, and more about lifestyle change.”

The closing awards ceremony takes place on April 25, but before then Curtatone will be hosting an event at the trampoline park Sky Zone, and invites community members to join his team.