By Jessica Bliss

Eating healthier is one of Mayor Karl Dean’s 2012 resolutions. So far, so good, he says. Though, he admits, it’s becoming more difficult as we move deeper into January.

Maintaining momentum is key to achieving any resolution, and just as Dean commits to sustaining his personal goals, he resolves to put continued emphasis on healthy living throughout Nashville this year.

He, along with other city officials, is calling for Nashvillians to do the same during NashVitality Week. The inaugural affair, which began Sunday and continues through Saturday, challenges all of Nashville to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

The week will feature three key events: the third annual Healthy Eating/Active Living (HEAL) Summit, a Youth Serving Organizations Workshop and a trio of Health Impact Assessment Workshops. Each event will include active discussion from city officials and community leaders about how to make Nashville a healthier place in 2012.

“The main thing is to keep the public galvanized and having the ambition to move Nashville and the state of Tennessee out of the bottom of the obesity rankings,” Dean says.

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The final piece of NashVitality Week is a series of health impact assessment workshops. The first takes place today; another will take place Friday and the third on Jan. 25.

The idea behind the workshops is to teach people how to analyze potential health effects of policies, plans or projects that are developed without a specific focus on health.

For example, the Health Department recently performed a health impact assessment on its Easy Ride program, which lets workers at participating employers swipe their ID card to pay a fare, and the transit authority then bills the employer. “It sounds like a healthy thing,” Paul says, but the assessment helps indicate whether the program actually does cause less air pollution or encourage activity through people walking to the bus stop.

The NashVitality workshops will expose community members to both the idea of a health impact assessment and the methods involved. It’s “technical assistance, training and teaching,” [Dr. Bill] Paul [director of the Metro Public Health Department] says.

“It’s a formal way of trying to make sure the decisions we make and the projects we pursue and build are adding to health, or are at least not inadvertently negative to people’s health.”

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