As a nation, we know that our own choices and behaviors - including physical inactivity - have contributed to rising rates of chronic disease and obesity. It seems easy enough to encourage individuals and families to engage in more physical activity. But the reality is that in many communities across the nation, making healthy choices such as getting active is not only difficult; sometimes it's not even option.

"It's not that hard," we might say. "Just go out and take a walk around your neighborhood." But what if that neighborhood doesn't have sidewalks, and is cut off from other parts of the community? What if residents in that neighborhood feel unsafe when walking around because of poor lighting or other issues? What if children can't play because of lack of space?

Confronting our nation's health crisis requires that we support individuals and communtiies in making better choices, and that we work together to address the underlying conditions and other factors - stress, poverty, social isolation, and neighborhood safety - that contribute to declining health and well-being. This is especially important for those living in communities with limited access to the tools and resources needed to attain and maintain a healthier lifestyle.

We need to make the healthy choice the easy choice by ensuring that our communities have adequate opportunities for children, families and adults to engage in healthy behaviors in all of the places where they live, work, learn, and play.

The Y, along with many other national and local organizations, is part of a growing "healthier communities" movement around the nation, bringing together community leaders and advocates to transform environments and to ensure that healthy opportunities are available to all - no matter where they live.

These collaborative efforts are making getting fit by active transportation easier by creating streets that are safe for all users whether they walk, bike or drive. They are making it easier for kids to walk to school by providing walking school buses and designated walk-to-school days. They are building or repairing parks or playgrounds, thereby providing opportunities for kids and families to play together. They are connecting communtiies by building walking and bike paths. They are ensuring that town and city plans address community design to ensure they support physical activity - and so much more.

A healthier community is a stronger community, leading not only to improved chronic disease and obesity rates, but often an improved economy. Imagine a neighborhood where businesses that struggled suddenly thrive after new street lighting makes it possible to shop at night. Imagine children playing in a new park. Imagine a new bustling town businesses district that is connected to residential neighborhoods through pedestrian and bike trails.

The possibilities are limitless, but it will take all parts of a community working together to achieve the goal of healthy communities where opportunities for physical activity benefit everyone.

What kind of barriers to physical activity might communities face? What are some things that communities can do together to overcome those barriers? Who might need to work together to help support physical activity in these communities? What ares ome of the benefits, outside of improved physical health, that healthier communities can lead to?

So many things can get between our intentions and our actions. Sometimes my desire to write—even when motivated by a firm deadline—is held at bay while I adjust the blinds, make tea, boot up and log on. Things I know I should do but haven’t fully bought into can find no end of delays and reasons not to.

So it is with exercise, for many people. But even those who know how good it feels to be physically active and who earnestly seek the health benefits of a healthy lifestyle may confront circumstances that make it inordinately difficult. I’d like to explore some of those challenges and ways to address them. The goal, as always, is to help everyone enjoy appropriate physical activity throughout the lifespan.

Perhaps you grew up in a suburban house with a generous backyard. Did you have a city park nearby? I did, and I loved to ride my bike to school—all over town, in fact, as my age and my parents’ confidence in me increased. Add schoolyard play and team sports, and I burned quite a few calories with a smile on my face. Many evenings saw robust games of Kick the Can at locations throughout the neighborhood.

What about kids who have no backyard, no nearby park and inadequate school playgrounds? Team sports aren’t an option for some, with no school leagues and no minivan to the soccer field.

Opportunities for adults vary, too. Not everyone can afford to join a health club and hire a personal trainer. Rural dwellers may live miles from the nearest facility. Membership or league fees are the barrier for some—ditto the cost of sports equipment, lessons and travel. Kids in unsafe neighborhoods may be kept indoors, snacking in front of the TV or game console.

Too often, such challenges get between healthful exercise and those who could benefit from it.

Solutions

Those who advocate for health and wellness can do much to expand opportunities for physical activity and exercise. Solutions may involve working with local officials or simple, informal collaboration. For example, can school facilities be open to the community after hours? How about pitching in to make a vacant lot into a pocket park? Neighbors, merchants and volunteers can work wonders in a day. A congregation in search of an outreach project might start a soccer league, a weekly game of kickball, or a jump-rope-a-thon.

For longer-term, larger-scale solutions, look at the impact rails-to-trails projects have had in some communities. Build paths and they will come: walking, wheeling, strolling and skating their way to fitness. Zoning laws can require sidewalks in new or redeveloped neighborhoods.

While some pursuits need costly equipment (think polo, on the high end), an active life often requires nothing more than a pair of walking shoes and your imagination.

Bottom line? Being physically active is too important to health and quality of life to let some of us go without. Let’s look at what keeps people from exercise and find ways to surmount the barriers. Now, what was I saying about writer’s block?

What barriers to physical activity confront some people in your community? How can they be overcome?

www.pedbikeimages.org by Andy Hamilton

Intuitively it makes sense that creating more walkable communities will help meet the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines from Americans because walking is the most frequent form of Physical activity.  I wondered whether walkability makes a difference and which communities have tackled this issue.  I got curious about this and did a search to find out more. 

My first stop was to look into whether community design makes a difference in increasing physical activity rates.  I visited The Community Guide for Preventive Services Web site where I learned that their research confirmed the increase in community members’ physical activity levels after land use policies are put into place at the community level and even at the street level!

I also noticed that progress is being made towards meeting the Healthy People 2010 objective to increase the proportion of trips made by walking.  For adults, the objective was to increase from the baseline of 17% in 1995 to 25 percent.  As of 2001, this measure had increased to 21%.

How timely! Just when my curiosity was aroused, a colleague told me about the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center’s new recognition program, Walk Friendly Communities with applications opening November first. 

Even more fascinating, the PBIC has a search tool that you can use to find examples of policies and changes implemented in cities across the country to improve walkability.  Their Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center also Case Study Compendium includes dozens of examples of communities with pedestrian and bicycle projects and programs.  Planning pedestrian programs ranged from the City of Charlotte North Carolina’s Commitment to the Pedestrian Program to a Traffic Calming Guidelines project in Sacramento, California.

My next stop was to visit the CDC’s Healthy Places Web page and browse the recent CDC community design report issued in April that illustrated the importance of taking public health, including physical activity, into account when creating the built environment.  The report included five case studies of communities that illustrate best practices in community design to support good health.  One of these communities, Lakewood, Colorado, is paying particular attention to walkability as it develops the Belmar Project, a pedestrian centered residential and retail area.

In this same report, Bill Gilchrist, a member of the American Institute of Architects, working with Miami-Dade County, briefed participants in this expert workshop on his urban design work with them.  He commented that when the environment is healthier, there is a more economically thriving community.  Interestingly, Gilchrist noted the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Community Economic Development report The Economic Benefit of a Walkable Community that highlighted several economic benefits of a more walkable community and ways to make communities more walkable.  

Last summer, HHS hosted a Webinar on June 15th for Physical Activity Guidelines Supporters.  As part of the Webinar Nicole Rioles, Campaign Coordinator discussed Shape Up Somerville, a Massachusetts citywide campaign to increase daily physical activity and healthy eating. The campaign includes a number of interventions including walkability and safe routes to schools.

Now, I’m even more curious to learn from you.  What is your community doing to build a healthy community that is more walkable?