Kids at Westwood Elementary School in Houston lacked programs to keep them active after classes ended each day.
Samuel Karns, a health fitness instructor/coach at Westwood, decided to step up to the challenge and find a way to bring more exercise and sport related activities to keep his students moving.
His work resulted in a series of afterschool fitness clubs, an afterschool intermural sports program, a student-led school health advisory council (K-SHAC) for elementary-school students, an action based learning lab and a one-of-a-kind district-wide initiative to bring physical activity to sixth-graders. The Issue of Physical Inactivity and Obesity
Awareness: In fall 2009, Samuel Karns was only a few months into his job as a health fitness instructor/coach at Westwood Elementary ...
Salud America! today released six Spanish-language animated videos that shed light on the causes of solutions to childhood obesity. The videos, which are also available in English, explore the latest research into how six critical topics—marketing, school snacks, sugary drinks, neighborhood food environments, active play and access to active spaces—impact child health. The videos also feature evidence-based recommendations on how to address the problem. The child-narrated videos are part of a six new packages of research materials produced by Salud America!, a national research network on childhood obesity that is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Each topic’s package contains: a research review, an assessment of all available scientific evidence on ...
Community, school, and city officials worked together to develop a shared use agreement to use school grounds to create a community park at Sky Harbour Elementary School in San Antonio, Texas, with a playground, exercise equipment, trails, and an amphitheater that is open after school hours. The effort illustrates how people can work together to bring important improvements to the physical environment that can increase local options for physical activity. Each of these stakeholders saw the need for more play space in the community and supported a shared use agreement to guarantee access to Sky Harbour’s recreational facilities on school grounds after school hours. From start to finish, each group played a vital role in assuring that the children of this underserved community would ...
MHP and Alice Independent School District partnered to create a shared use agreement. This would make school-owned recreational areas—gyms, playgrounds, parks, and walking trails—available to the public after school hours, adding a much-needed physical activity option in an area that faces high rates of obesity and related health complications.
The Need for More Places for Physical Activity
Awareness: Robert De Leon, a former program director at MHP—an organization that has provided leadership in health promotion and program development for farmworkers and their families and other communities since 1983—was increasingly concerned about high obesity rates in South Texas. In 2011, MHP applied for a Texas Health Initiative’s Community Transformation Grant to focus new ...
Residents living in the small rural community of Earlimart, Calif., lacked outdoor spaces for the physical activity they needed to develop and maintain healthy lifestyles and weights.
The Earlimart School District’s superintendent responded to this need by trying an experiment. She had the custodial staff at one school leave the school gate open. Word got around that the school’s gate had been left open—soon the school’s field was filled with local residents.
This experiment ultimately led to a change in the school district’s rule, which allows Tulare county residents from non-affiliated groups to use the school yard at Earlimart Middle School.
The story does not end here; once residents realized the difference a place to play could make in improving the health of the ...
In San Antonio, Texas, Edison High School students, families, and community members partnered with school officials to open school’s new lighted track for a regular walking program. The Need for More Opportunities for Physical Activity
Awareness: Toward the beginning of her sophomore year, Edison High School student Brianna Reynosa began to notice there had been some changes to her school’s lunch menu. “It started with the new lunch menu. When I noticed the changes in the menu, I asked [Edison Principal] Mr. [Charles] Munoz about it and he began to tell me about how obesity was a problem in the community, and how he wanted the students at Edison to be healthy,” Brianna said. Before, Brianna hadn’t really stopped to think about the consequences that come with making ...
In communities where parks and land-space are limited, shared use agreements are providing more areas of recreation for children. Spartanburg, S.C., for example, does not have enough active spaces. Although the idea of sharing space in Spartanburg had existed for some time, formalizing shared use agreements between the City and two school districts—Spartanburg County School District 6 and Spartanburg County School District 7—took about two years. Thanks to the collaboration of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, the two school districts, and various community organizations, Spartanburg now has a shared use policy that keeps 10 school playgrounds open to the community during non-school hours.
The Issue of Physical Activity
Awareness: Since the late 1990s, members of the ...
Promotores working with the Chula Vista Community Collaborative (CVCC) participated in an asset mapping project in Chula Vista, Calif., in 2000. As part of a $5,000 grant for an adopt-a-block project—a joint effort of the San Diego County’s Substance Abuse Summit VI and the CVCC—promotores spoke with local residents to learn about the neighborhood’s assets, health, and safety concerns. It was then that they discovered a lack of active space in the community, and that residents wanted a park. Eventually, the promotores teamed up with community agencies, gathered information, and presented their case to the Chula Vista City Council. After receiving city approval, they gave input for the park’s design and watched construction of Harborside Park— the first park in that area ...
Not everyone has access to places to play or be physically active. That is why a housing agency, fueled by local research and focus groups of homeowners, created policy to include sidewalks, hike/bike trails, and a playground to plans for an affordable housing neighborhood in a colonia, an impoverished region of South Texas.
Why Is Obesity an Issue in Colonias?
Research indicates an obesity rate of 18.1% among Mexican-American preschool -aged children living in colonias—small, impoverished settlements that often lack proper infrastructure along the Texas-Mexico border. Colonias tend to lack sidewalks, street lights, places for recreation, and running water. Ann Cass, director of Proyecto Azteca—a non-profit organization that works to build homes for residents in the ...
