Cooking Classes on Front Burner for Vitality City

The Beach Cities kicked off their inaugural community-wide Vitality City program, the , in April, and now they're ready to launch more courses to encourage healthy habits among residents.

The new health programs on the horizon, according to the Vitality City's team of experts and representatives, include:

Summer

• Vitality City cooking classes are scheduled to begin, promoting the value of cooking meals by teaching participants healthy, easy-to-make food options.
• The Vitality City team has discussed working with local restaurants to offer healthier food options to customers.
• The Vitality City team plans to share with residents its proposal to make the Beach Cities more bikeable and walkable.

Fall

• A "Walking School Bus" program is scheduled to launch, which will organize groups of children to walk to school with one or more adults, increasing daily physical activity and promoting intergenerational interaction.
• Purpose workshops are scheduled to launch, which will organize interested community members to increase their well-being by identifying personal passions and natural abilities among each other.

These individual programs are part of the Healthways-Blue Zone Vitality City project that was approved by the Beach Cities Health District last year.

So far, the only Vitality City program that has begun is the Walking Moai (pronounced Mo-EYE). As of Thursday, more than 1,100 Beach Cities residents have pledged their commitment to walking and formed more than 85 walking groups.