Dorchester is one of the Massachusetts communities making strides toward better health through the statewide anti-obesity initiative Mass in Motion, according to a report by the Boston Foundation.

Created in 2008 as a response to the obesity crisis, Mass in Motion leverages state, federal, and private funds in advocating healthy eating, active living, and the designing of healthy communities. Communities like Dorchester, diverse and historically underserved, stand to benefit from increased access to quality food and better active transit options championed by such programs, the report, which was released last Tuesday, suggests.

A 2008 Foundation report found that “Massachusetts, in spite of being the first state to have near-universal
health care coverage and some of the best medical facilities in the world, was highly vulnerable to the insidious effects of a poor diet, inadequate exercise, and unhealthy weight,” said Foundation president Paul Grogan in the report.

Rates of adult obesity rose gradually until the late 1970s, according to the 2008-2009 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, spiked upward just before 1980 and leveled off around 2000. National obesity rates had climbed from 13.4 in the 1960s to 35.7 percent in 2010.

Massachusetts has largely tracked with the rest of the country on the issue. During the 40 percent jump in national overweight and obesity rates between 1990 and 2007, the Commonwealth saw a 47 percent increase. Areas of Dorchester meet or significantly outpace the average city obesity rates, a DotHouse Health assessment found.

The stresses of widespread obesity on a population are substantial, this week’s report noted. Massachusetts exceeded $3.5 billion in medical costs directly attributed to obesity in 2009, “not to mention the indirect costs associated with lost productivity, workers compensation and expenses related to reduced quality of life due to stress or depression” the report said.

Dorchester is among the 16 original Mass in Motion “legacy communities” that joined the project within a year of its launch and subsequent grant award in early 2009.

Allison Bauer, one of the report’s authors, said the decision to invest in Dorchester as community was made before the 2010 census data came out. The 2000 census was the best available demographic data at the time, showing the neighborhood’s population of 92,000 was approximately 36 percent black, 32 percent white, 11 percent Latino, and 11 percent Asian.

Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury were among the neighborhoods with the highest heart disease hospitalization rates, according to the Boston Public Health Commission’s 2008 “Health of Boston” report. Boston residents in households earning $25,000 or less reported higher rates of asthma, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and obesity when compared to higher-income residents.

“If you overlay maps and look at implications for chronic disease, lack of healthy food access, those issues that lend themselves toward heart disease, they overlap with the Roxbury-Dorchester-Mattapan corridor,” Bauer said.

Race can correlate with higher rates of obesity, according to reports. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health report that prompted Mass in Motion noted that between 2003 and 2007 black and Hispanic adults in Massachusetts were, respectively, 60 percent and 50 percent more likely to be obese than white adults.

Dorchester is cited as a Mass in Motion community profile in the Boston Foundation report, alongside the city of Springfield and the amalgamation of Amherst, Belchertown, Northampton, and Williamsburg collectively called “Healthy Hampshire.”

The Bowdoin Street Health Center leads the Dorchester Mass in Motion group. The program’s focus has shifted to include a greater emphasis on bicycling to work through Dorchester Bike Coalition and Bowdoin Bike School. Waymarkers for walking and bicycling ensure clearly noted paths.

While Mattapan is one of the W K Kellogg Foundation-funded Food & Fitness communities, Dorchester was selected by Mass in Motion for similar programming in 2009. In several planning meetings, community health groups identified underutilized walking areas and green space, as well as areas with a dearth of readily available healthy food options.

Highlighted in the report is the Bowdoin center’s Farm to Family Community Supported Agriculture program, which recruits employees and members of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Longwood Medical Area to purchase weekly farm box shares. They receive 16 weeks of fresh, locally grown produce delivered to them and are encouraged to donate to support the purchase of subsidized boxes for low-income families in Dorchester.