As the Executive Director of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition I am profoundly aware of the importance of making physical activity and nutrition accessible and affordable for all Americans, especially children. This is a multifaceted problem, and I’ll address several dimensions of this issue in this discussion. 

Availability of facilities that provide healthy, affordable food in our communities is a necessity.  If we do not have facilities within our neighborhoods where we can obtain fresh fruits and vegetables at affordable prices, then kids are going to continue to buy the Twinkies.  We’ve got to incent our retail establishments to be able to come into communities. I think we’ve seen success where we’ve put forth the effort in this area.

The school environment has a strong influence on whether physical activity and nutrition are accessible to children. Kids spend a good part of their days, weeks, and years in school.  We’ve got to continue pushing for policy change as it relates to physical education and school meals.

In many cases we are going in the wrong direction. Physical education is being cut out of schools, and it is so very important.  Many states are passing policies mandating physical activity. This time could be recess, before or after school programs, or physical education.  The unintended consequence  we are hearing from school officials is “we are doing our 15 minutes of recess and then kids are walking between classes, so we are just going to cut PE because nobody said we have to do PE.”  Physical education is a curricular area.  It is an educational area that should be taught by a certified physical education teacher.   It is not recess.

When advocates like myself come in and say we need more physical education, what we are really saying is we need more quality PE.

We know it can be done.  Often we hear that test scores are the priority and we only have so many minutes in each school day, but we have examples of schools that have made it a priority where kids are getting 30 minutes of physical education every day and their test scores are increasing.  For more information regarding this, reference the Centers for Disease Control and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education report on academics and physical education. There is an increasing body of research that shows definitively that kids who are physically active perform better academically. It can decrease their delinquency and behavioral issues, as well as help them concentrate so they tend to perform better on tests.

Has your organization worked to improve access to the health of America’s children through physical activity and nutrition? How? To learn how you can get involved, visit www.presidentschallenge.org and become a President’s Challenge Advocate today.

Note:  The President’s Council’s name was recently changed by Executive Order from President Obama to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition (PCFSN) in recognition of the fact that good nutrition must go hand in hand with fitness and sports participation in order to achieve a healthy lifestyle.

Obesity is an American crisis. It’s official. We know this, not because of any proclamations from the arbiters of such titles, but because of the attention the issue is receiving from the most influential sectors in the country. 

We are, as a nation, unequivocally, in crisis. And a crisis requires a change.

But what will drive the systemic change required to reverse thirty years of rising obesity rates? 

Our most influential sectors have an enormous capacity to create widespread awareness and share ideas, but their abilities to drive change, especially for a problem rooted at the individual level, is limited.

Those sectors of lesser national influence, however - families, neighbors, friends, co-workers, communities – are fantastic at driving change on an individual level. 

In fact, we believe the solution to the obesity crisis will not be revealed as a silver bullet, but as the sum of millions of acts of compassion; people caring enough about the folks around them and/or themselves to seek a change. 

But, of course, compassion can only do so much. People need resources to change. They need direction.

IHRSA’s Get Active America! program is designed to provide that direction at the community level.

The annual, week long program is a health initiative that enables IHRSA health clubs to increase their roles in improving the health of their neighborhoods. The goal is to educate community members to take control of their health by integrating regular exercise into their lives. Each year, the program attracts tens of thousands of individuals to hundreds of health clubs nationwide, many for the first time.

The program is simple. Each participating health club agrees to allow members to “bring a friend” of their choosing – a child, spouse, parent, grandparent, friend, co-worker or neighbor – from May 3-6th. In addition, each club must hold an “open house” for the community from May 7-9th.

This year’s theme is “Take Back Your Health,” which is supported by three program tracks: Feel Better, Look Better, and Live Better.

The Feel Better track includes offerings such as nutrition counseling, stress management seminars, and specific disease programming (such as diabetes or arthritis).

The Look Better track highlights activities like core-training classes, weight-loss counseling, and toning exercises.

The Live Better track stresses events including family physical activities, free screenings, and exercise-related seminars from local medical professionals.

We know that it will take more than just Get Active America! to solve the obesity crisis, but we are confident, or, at least, as hopeful as possible, that the program’s emphasis on local community outreach, and its reliance on the compelling power of compassionate camaraderie (i.e. “Bring a Friend”), will prove to be key underpinnings of the nation’s successful effort to combat obesity. 

We know there are hundreds of other wonderful community programs around the nation.  We’d love to know - what is your organization doing?

This week, we spotlight two national efforts to promote community-level change:

HHS Secretary Sebelius Announces the Availability of Recovery Act Funds for Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative  (Source:  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)  Ten million dollars of Recovery Act funds have been allocated to help communities decrease smoking and obesity, increase physical activity and improve nutrition.

First Lady Michelle Obama joins U.S. Soccer Foundation...support of the Soccer Foundation’s 25 city Passback Tour in partnership with the National Alliance for Hispanic Health  (Source:  U.S. Soccer Foundation)  First Lady promotes the partnership responsible for establishing free soccer clinics/health screenings in communities across the country.

In your opinion, how can the Federal government most effectively leverage its resources to promote change at the community level?