One of the best ways to ensure physical fitness is to develop a habit for fitness early in life. People who develop an interest in running, for example, as children are probably more likely to be runners as adults than are people who never cultivate that interest when they’re young.

Officials at the Suffolk Partnership for a Healthy Community understand this point, and they have made it the basis of recent efforts to spread the message of physical fitness to a younger generation. That effort had its most public application yet during a 3K run/walk event held Saturday at Creekside Elementary School.

Partnering with the school, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southeast Virginia, a couple of local businesses and the Salvation Army Suffolk Corps, the Partnership made the America Rocks 3K into a great morning of exercise and friendship for students, parents, teachers, administrators and friends of the school. They hope to make it an annual event and to expand its reach to other schools in Suffolk, as well.

As it turns out, both the Partnership and the Salvation Army have had the same idea about youth fitness for some time, and the recent completion of the Army’s physical health and education building served as a catalyst to get the idea off the ground and get the two parties working together on it.

Folks in Suffolk can expect to see more such collaborations designed to help them improve and sustain their health in the future. And those with children in the city’s schools should expect to hear more from their kids about such topics in the future, as organizations like the Salvation Army and the Partnership for a Healthy Community pull out the stops to make sure kids get the right messages about healthy living.

In the end, children and adults, alike, will benefit from such a focus.