Are Americans Walking More Today Than at This Time Last Year?

© (Getty Images) Grassroots movements in cities like Denver and San Antonio have helped make walking easier for residents.

Taking stock of the progress since the surgeon general's call to action to promote walking. The surgeon general's national call to action to promote walking celebrated its one-year anniversary last month. Walking was chosen as a public health strategy to combat the obesity epidemic for important reasons. First, it does not require any special skills or expensive equipment and can be done in nearly any setting. Walking can be incorporated into most people's lifestyles, has a lower injury risk than many other exercises and is physically doable for most people. Finally, it's a great exercise for newcomers to physical activity, who can walk faster or farther as they become more fit.

When the call to action was first introduced, the surgeon general outlined five goals:

1. Make walking a national priority.
2. Design communities that make walking safe and easy for people of all ages and abilities.
3. Promote programs and policies to support walking where people live, learn, work and play.
4. Provide information to encourage walking and improve walkability.
5. Fill surveillance, research and evaluation gaps related to walking and walkability.

A year later, how much progress have we made? 

Grassroots movements, for one, have made notable progress. For example, residents and neighborhood leaders in Denver worked together with local organizations to make their roads safer for and more accessible to pedestrians. The students at a Kansas City high school created a fitness trail on school grounds in response to learning about their county's high obesity rate. Community members in San Antonio worked with urban designers to add walkable "streetscape" elements like trees, separated sidewalks and landscaping to a construction project that was already underway. The list goes on.

Larger organizations have also made strides – pun intended. The Safe Routes to School National Partnership, for example, created report cards for all states to measure their walking and physical activity-related policies. By clicking on your state, you can learn about its strengths and weaknesses in areas including how easy it is to actively commute to work or school, how much money is dedicated to active transportation funding and how much the state is doing to become more physically active.


How can you answer the call? 

Look no further than the grassroots successes for proof that you can truly improve the health of the members of your community; let the state report card target your efforts. Figure out where the needs of your state or community intersect with your own expertise and passions, and reach out to groups that operate in that space. You may want to choose something simple that can be done quickly, or work on something challenging that can ultimately have a bigger impact. The national partnership offers several activities and strategies you can use to spark change, including bringing media attention to the issue, using social media to spread your message, engaging local elected officials to encourage changes at the state level and implementing existing programs in your area. Plus, you can make personal changes to add more steps to your day. Here's how:

• Pace the room while talking on the phone.
• Use the restroom one floor down (or up) at work.
• Walk around while watching your child's soccer game or volleyball practice.
• March in place while brushing your teeth or hair.
• Walk over to your coworker's desk instead of emailing him or her.
• Make it a habit to take an after-dinner stroll with the family.
• If you arrive early for an appointment, walk around the block instead of sitting in the waiting room.
• Hold "walking meetings" whenever possible.
• Set the alarm on your watch or phone to go off every hour and take a quick five-minute walk when it does.
• Whenever possible (and safe), take the scenic route for any walking excursion.

The beauty of walking as a form of physical activity is that it requires so little planning and is easily integrated into most people's routines. As this list illustrates, it's often just a matter of getting up and doing it whenever you have – or are able to create – the opportunity. You just have to shift your mindset a bit. You can also look beyond the health benefits and consider an evening walk with your family valuable bonding time. Use the social support of your coworkers to turn stuffy conference room meetings into outdoor excursions and lunches into walking breaks.

Eventually, these small personal shifts – coupled with community-wide efforts – will make a difference. Your community could be one in which the neighbors gather to walk and chat after dinner and walk their kids to and from school each day. Perhaps this time next year, we'll be highlighting your efforts as being among those making a meaningful impact on the obesity epidemic.


Copyright 2016 U.S. News & World Report