FORT SILL, Okla. (Oct. 11, 2017) -- During the course of a week Army collaborators gathered to align their individual efforts into a coordinated attempt to create healthy communities throughout the branch.
The goal transcends the Army requirement for Soldiers to maintain a battle-ready physique and hopes to reach Army families, retirees and Department of Defense employees working on Army installations.
Leaders from the headquarters of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation, Army and Air Force Exchange Service, Defense Commissary Agency, as well as other representatives met at Fort Sill from Oct. 2-6.
They discussed what each individual organization was doing to promote healthy living. Additionally representatives phoned in from the Army Public Health Center and Army Wellness Center to participate.
Fort Sill was chosen as the meeting place because of the installation's success with the Healthy Base Initiative (HBI), a program bringing healthy living options to service members and their families.
Through HBI there were menu innovations, cooking classes, a focus on combating tobacco use and promoting physical activity, said Robin Schepper, consultant with the Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis (CBRE, the contractor supporting Healthy Army Community).
"We want to learn from Fort Sill because Sill was in the HBI and what they have done we can take to other installations and mentor them," said Schepper. "We have stakeholders here and Fort Sill leadership that wants to help. We went and talked with health care, child care, visited the youth places asking 'what do you need help with' and then we presented that to the commanding general."
The group shared communication techniques, marketing plans, and even pulled in nonparticipants for focus groups. The focus groups delved into the wants and needs of the customers (individuals who work, live and shop on the installation) to include fitness needs, accessibility of healthy food choices, and awareness of healthy options and support.
Curt Cornelssen, managing director of public sector consulting for CBRE, said the weeklong study brings stakeholders and customers into the planning stage.
Because of the collaborative meeting, best practices will be modeled and then shared to other installations to implement. A scalable and sustainable plan will be formulated from what has been learned at Fort Sill to not only improve other installations but also to further the advancements made at Fort Sill thus far.
"What's amazing is that this is historic," said Cornelssen. "We have the stakeholders working together. We have dietitians across the table from the exchange and collaborating."
The end result is what those involved call Healthy Army Communities. They are also quick to explain that Healthy Army Communities is not a plan or program like the Healthy Base Initiative was.
Instead, the intent of Healthy Army Communities is to create communities at each installation where healthy living is supported.
"Where we live, work, play, shop we want to provide healthy choices," said Schepper. "We want healthy choice to be the easy choice."
Making the healthy choice the easy choice means making two changes, said Schepper. The first is making an environmental change.
"And environmental change has to happen before the individual change," said Schepper. "We build sidewalks, provide healthy options, whatever it is, we make the environment change so we can support the individual-behavioral change."
With a supportive environment in place, then the work to change individuals can begin.
"An individual or behavioral change takes much longer," said Schepper. "We can build a hiking path but it doesn't mean people will use it. Here at Sill we have charging stations, but if the people don't see it or don't know about it they won't use it. It's not on the individual. How do WE get the message out? Everyone has a role to play, everyone can do a part. We want to create a lifelong strong Army."
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