Putting Promotion Into Practice: The African Americans Building a Legacy of Health Organizational Wellness Program Antronette K. Yancey, MD, MPH Lavonna Blair Lewis, PhD Joyce Jones Guinyard, DC David C. Sloane, PhD Lori Miller Nascimento, MPH Lark Galloway-Gilliam Allison L. Diamant, MD, MSHS William J. McCarthy, PhD O besity is pervasive in our postmodern environ- ment that daily presents us with a smorgasbord of aggressively advertised, highly palatable, energy- dense but nutrient-poor foods and in which most obliga- tory physical activity has been engineered out of our lives (e.g., French, Story, & Jeffery, 2001). For this reason, little sustainable weight-related lifestyle change has been pro- duced by individually targeted interventions, despite their highly motivated, relatively affluent, and largely White volunteer study samples (e.g., Jeffery et al., 2000; Swinburn, Gill, & Kumanyika, 2005). In communities of color, obesity rates are higher and have increased at a greater rate in recent years than among Whites. This may be attributed, in part, to a proliferation of targeted adver- tising and fast food outlets, few supermarkets or healthy dining options, and recreational opportunities limited by unsafe neighborhoods and a dearth of parks, walking or biking lanes, or paths (Estabrooks, Lee, & Gyurcsik, 2003; Lewis, Wells, & Ware, 1986; Powell, Slater, & Chaloupka, 2004; Sloane et al., 2003). Population-based obesity control, in which environ- mental change is targeted along with individual lifestyle change, is in its infancy compared with tobacco control (Matson-Koffman, Brownstein, Neiner, & Greaney, 2005; Mercer et al., 2003), a model of public health success in social norm and legislative policy change. The impetus for societal investment in these obesity control approaches A Los Angeles REACH demonstration project led by Community Health Councils, Inc. adapted and imple- mented an organizational wellness intervention orig- inally developed by the local health department, providing training in incorporating physical activity and healthy food choices into the routine “conduct of business” in 35 predominantly public and private, non- profit-sector agencies. A total of 700 staff, members, or clients completed the 12-week or subsequently retooled 6-week curriculum. Attendance and retention rates between baseline and postintervention assessments were improved substantially in the shortened offering. Feelings of sadness or depression decreased signifi- cantly (p = .00), fruit and vegetable intake increased significantly (+0.5 servings/day, p = .00), and body mass index decreased marginally (–0.5 kg/m 2 , p = .08) among 12-week participants. The numbers of days in which individuals participated in vigorous physical activity increased significantly among 6-week partici- pants (+0.3, p = .00). This model holds promise for extending the reach of environmentally focused work- site wellness programming to organizations and at-risk populations not traditionally engaged by such efforts. Keywords: lifestyle change; work site; workplace policy; practice; physical activity; nutrition; exercise; community-based participatory research Health Promotion Practice Supplement to July 2006 Vol. 7, No. 3, 233S-246S DOI: 10.1177/1524839906288696 ©2006 Society for Public Health Education Authors’ Note: The authors wish to thank Cindy Benitez, Nicole Evans, Gwendolyn Flynn, Forrest Fykes, Eloise Gonzales, Adisa Griffin, Larry Henderson, Jonathan Nomachi, Danielle Osby, Angela Raines, Jacqueline Stiles, and Mark Weber for their contributions to the conduct of this research or the writing of this article. 233S