According to a San Antonio Express- News article, local residents can now enjoy several options for staying active through free programming offered by the city's Parks and Recreation Department. Because fitness programming and gym memberships are often expensive, cities like San Antonio, TX are often looking for alternative ways to keep residents active. After participating in classes for a brief time, some program participants, like Gabrielle Gullete, say they have already noticed improvements in their health. “I think more people need to know about what the city offers,” Gullette said. “I had no idea what my options were.” Gullete also added that since joining the free fitness classes, four months prior, she lost 25 pounds. According to the San Antonio ...
Thanks to a partnership between Children and Neighbors Defeat Obesity (CAN DO) Houston, the Houston Parks and Recreation Department (HPARD), and the Houston Independent School District (HISD), students at Briscoe Elementary School in Houston now have new opportunities for the active play they need to ensure health and prevent childhood obesity. Before the collaboration, parents identified a lack of physical activity as a primary health concern; now thanks to an after school busing program, students can attend after-school activities at a nearby park for free.
EMERGENCE
Awareness: In 2005, the 44% Latino city of Houston was named America’s fattest city by Men’s Fitness magazine, prompting the formation of the Mayor’s Wellness Council (MWC) and later the Houston Wellness Association ...
Rainer Valley is one of Seattle's most diverse neighborhoods. In 2012, residents of this community joined efforts to help make the streets of Seattle more walkable and bikeable by planning for greenways in their neighborhood. Greenways---paths that provide infrastructure to encourage walking and biking in residential neighborhoods---are one way to create healthy streets. Recently, members of the Rainier Valley Greenways Builds Coalition for Safe Healthy Streets (Rainer Valley Greenways) have begun planning and reaching out to neighbors, to hear what they have to say about street improvements. Members of the coalition mapped out significant places in the community like schools and parks, and drafted a Greenways timeline. To view the map, timeline, and other documents related to the ...
Pennsylvania residents will soon have increased opportunities to bike and walk thanks to a law which will make up to $2.4 billion in transportation funds available towards pedestrian and bicycle oriented projects. According to Streetsblog and PreventObesity.net, the bill enacted in November 2013 will: provide at least $2 million towards pedestrian and bicyclist projects annually;
increase the state's multi-modal fund from a total of $33 million to $144 million over the next five years (pedestrian and bicycle projects will be eligible);
allow for the use of transportation funds in lighting pedestrian projects; and
include pedestrian and bicycle facilities as part of the state's comprehensive transportation system. In April 2013, this policy was in development. At the time, a ...
A group of Texas Tech University students wanted to get some hands-on coaching experience. Jeff Key, an instructor at Texas Tech, worked to give the students in-class instruction and an opportunity to coach/teach and do community service at the same time—a unique effort that resulted in the development of after-school fitness and mentoring programming at McWhorter Elementary School in Lubbock, Texas.
Emergence
Awareness: Jeff Key, an instructor and coordinator of community outreach for the Department of Health, Exercise Science, and Sport Sciences at Texas Tech University (TTU), knew that obesity was a problem among the community. He was especially concerned with how it was affecting younger generations. “We were concerned that almost 35% of elementary kids were overweight or ...
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.
Emergence
Awareness: In fall 2009, Samuel Karns was only a few months into his job as a health fitness instructor/coach at Westwood Elementary School in the Spring Branch ...
Obesity and diabetes are serious health concerns in underserved Latino communities. In this video from HBO's The Weight of the Nation Series, America Bracho executive director of Latino Health Access (LHA) explains why interventions are needed both before and after chronic diseases develop. "Any strategy wanting to defeat obesity needs to be community centered," Bracho said. Bracho has worked with the Latino community in Santa Ana, CA to find both short term and long term solutions to dealing with obesity. One way LHA is doing this is by bringing mobile playgrounds to children. The group is also working to have a park built in an area of the city where not one park exists. "We need to do something today...We need to create parks," Bracho remarks in this ...
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 city officials, a non-profit organization, a school district, a P.E. coach, students, parents, and members from the community 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 ...
MHP (formerly known as Migrant Health Promotion) and Alice Independent School District partner to create a shared use agreement to 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 a largely Latino population, at high risk of obesity and related health complications.
EMERGENCE
Awareness: Robert De Leon, a former program director at MHP—an organization that has provided leadership in health promotion, program development, and advocacy for migrant farmworkers and their families and other isolated communities since 1983—was increasingly concerned about high obesity rates in South Texas. In 2011, MHP applied for a Texas Health Initiative’s Community ...
