With healthy food hard to find, El Monte commits to promoting health, fitness

EL MONTE >> For Ruby Padilla, the hardest part about working out at 6 every morning isn’t waking up or the workout itself.

She’s able to get herself to Beastin Beauties Fit Salon on Ramona Boulevard on time just fine, and her workouts are more for maintenance after she lost 107 pounds two years ago.

The hardest part for her and all of her workout buddies is the doughnut shop next door.

“Every day is a test,” Padilla, 37, said. “Sometimes they get to us, but we try our best not to let them.”

Nearly half of El Monte lies in what the U.S. Department of Agriculture deems a food desert, areas where residents face difficulty accessing a variety of healthy food options. Fast food restaurants and liquor stores are plentiful along the city’s major streets.

But with the city unable to kick out restaurants or strip liquor licenses at will, it’s taken a different route: educating its residents about health and wellness and offering free programs meant to get locals active.

In 2010, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s Policies for Livable, Active Communities and Environments program awarded the city $100,000 a year for three years to fund its “Health and Wellness Element,” a plan to:

• Educate and promote mental and physical well being

• Improve active transportation options

• Increase access to healthy food choices

The grant funding allowed the city to develop educational outreach programs and to pay for free outdoor activities for residents.

In 2011, the city took the unusual step of adding the element to its general plan, an official document that usually lays out infrastructure, development and economic goals for the short and long terms, said Sandra Salcedo, community and senior services supervisor for the city.

The inclusion in the general plan commits the city to setting and achieving health and wellness goals, Salcedo said.

“We were pioneers at the time,” Salcedo said. “As such, we’ve really made it a point to make sure we continue to provide programming.”

With the grant funding long expired, the city now pays $372,000 a year for the programming and a full-time employee dedicated to health and wellness efforts, Salcedo said.

But not all the El Monte’s health programs, which include Zumba, yoga, dance and Tai Chi classes, cost the city money. For the past two years, Jay Armada, co-owner of Beastin Beauty Fit Studio, has taught free Zumba workout classes at Arceo Park the first Saturday of every month.

Her inspiration? She spent most of her life living in El Monte, and a few years ago she found herself weighing 220 pounds, significant given her height, and knew she needed to start exercising and change her diet before she was going to start a family.

She’s since lost 93 pounds, and after operating a free, informal boot camp at Legg Lake in the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area in 2014, she and a friend opened Beastin Beauties a year later.

“When I was heavier and I didn’t work out, I didn’t notice how bad it was,” Armada said. “No one really worked out until we started working out and getting everyone healthy. It’s a super big problem in our community.”

Armada said her free Zumba classes, which are supported by both the city and Day One, a local nonprofit organization that supports public health initiatives, regularly draw about 30 people, including many first-timers.

Data collected in 2007 and 2015 by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health indicate the programs may be catching on with adults. The percentage of obese adults in the city dropped from 37.1 percent of the total adult population in 2007 to 28.7 percent in 2015, exceeding the city’s goal of 30.5 percent by 2020.

Similarly, the percentage of adults who are not active dropped from 36.8 percent in 2007 to 29.1 percent in 2015, again exceeding the 2020 goal of 32.6 percent.

Also, data from Google searches made in El Monte indicate a strong interest in fitness, as searches for Planet Fitness increased 900 percent from July 2016 to July 2017.

Planet Fitness, which opened on Peck Road near Ramona in April, represents the first major gym chain to enter El Monte, Salcedo said.

However, not all of the city’s health and wellness data show positive gains, Salcedo added.

The Public Health Department data shows the percentage of obese children in the city rose from 28 percent in 2007 to 29.7 percent in 2015, far short of the city’s 2020 goal of 14.6 percent. The percentage of children who are not active rose from 17.1 percent in 2007 to 18.7 percent in 2015, with the 2020 goal set at 15 percent.

To help address childhood obesity in the city, junk food and soda is no longer sold in city parks, and family events all have a focus on health, Salcedo said. For instance, the annual Easter Eggstravaganza no longer features candy despite the holiday tradition.

“A few years ago, we cut out candy and sweets and made a spin on the event so that there’s more exercise and talking to kids about choosing wisely what we eat and the importance of being active every day,” Salcedo said.

City Councilwoman Victoria Martinez, who lost 30 pounds three years ago after adopting a new fitness and diet regimen, said what kids eat is just as important and what they do to stay active. As a girls’ softball coach, Martinez said she has seen her players work hard at practice, then lose their fitness gains to junk food.

“The parents are awesome in getting their children out, but they have to give up the mindset that just athletic activity is enough,” Martinez said. “It’s counterproductive to take the kids to practice, then feed them soda and potato chips after.”

Another major challenge continues to be whether or not the lessons taught at these community events and programs stick, Salcedo said.

“All we can do is offer programming,” Salcedo said. “We can’t live people’s lives for them. We offer information, resources, events and make it free to the public.”

In addition to working out at Beastin Beauties, resident Deborah Elizondo, 35, attends the free Zumba classes with her 11-year-old daughter.

About 1 1/2 years ago, Elizondo realized that her lifestyle choices were not only putting her in danger but also her family.

She would snack all day and then binge at night. She and her children would walk late at night to the 7-Eleven on Ramona Boulevard and allow each of the kids to pick out one junk food item, Elizondo said.

She herself was drinking three or four sodas a day, and fast food meals were common because they were cheaper and easier than cooking, she said.

After seeing a friend post on Facebook about Beastin Beauties, she decided to try working out for the first time in her life, and in the last 1 1/2 years, she’s lost 239 pounds.

“I was setting my kids up to become like me,” Elizondo said. “I was depressed, but I didn’t know it. I was taking my misery out on them.”

Since then, she’s brought healthy eating practices into the house, and the kids have begun to take after their mother in leading active lives. It continues to be a struggle, given how accustomed her children had become to fatty, salty and sugary sweet foods, but it’s worth fighting for, she said.

“Sometimes they fall back on their bad habits, but I think they know after seeing how much weight I’ve lost that eating healthy and exercising are important,” Elizondo said.

“My 8-year-old son says, ‘You look great, mom,’” she said with a laugh.

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