Be Active Your Way Blog - Healthy People

Physical Activity in Healthy People 2020

SLier — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:58:00 -0400

Written by Janet Fulton, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

How were the physical activity objectives developed?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in partnership with the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition worked with a team of federal agency representatives to formulate the objectives for the physical activity topic area. The availability of recent and ongoing nationally-representative data were a necessary requirement for inclusion of an objective; public comments provided further guidance for the final objectives. The Healthy People 2020 default method (10% relative beneficial change) was most commonly used to set the target for each objective.

What's new for Healthy People 2020?

The 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans provided an evidence-based framework by which the Healthy People 2020 physical activity behavioral objectives were revised. For adults and youth, objectives PA-2 and PA-3 are now consistent with the Guidelines. Because aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities are BOTH required to fully meet the Guidelines, sub-objectives for youth and adults that combine aerobic and muscle-strenghtening activities are now included.

School-based physical activity is reflected in modified objectives for physical education (PA-4 and PA-5) and in two new objectives for elementary school recess (PA-6 and PA-7). More than 60% of pre-school

children attend child care. Therefore, enacting policies that require physical activity in the child care setting (PA-9) is a strategy to modify the physical activity environment for children. Given the ubiquitous role screen time plays in society, the modified objective for youth to reduce screen time through telelvision viewing and computer use (PA-8) is an increasingly important goal.

A new objective for Healthy People 2020 (PA-11) will monitor physician counseling about exercise. Given the recent emphasis on physician counseling about physical activity by the American College of Sports Medicine's Exercise is Medicine program, it is timely that physical activity guidance in the health care setting is tracked at the national level.

Where do we go from here?

With less than 20% of adults meeting the Guidelines for aerobic and muscle strengthening activities and a similarly low percentage of youth meeting the Guidelines for aerobic physical activities, a multidisciplinary approach is needed to facilitate improvements in recommended levels of physical activity.

The importance of having reliable, nationally-representative data sources to track the metrics associated with physical activity cannot be overstated. Important and novel topics were discussed by the Work Group, only to learn that a suitable data source was unavailable. For example, improving the environment for physical activity is a recommended strategy, although there is no acceptable national data source that tracks individual access to green spaces or parks. The same is true for physical activity in the work place. It is imperative to continue support of current Healthy People 2020 data sources and to support future collection of strategic priority topic areas for physical activity promotion.

It is our hope that as these Healthy People objectives disseminate across states and into the schools, businesses, and organizations that make up our communities, there will be an interest in working across sectors to affect real change in physical activity behaviors. The National Physical Activity Plan provides an excellent multi-sectoral framework along with strategies and specific tactics for action. Time and again the health benefits of physical activity have been well documented. Let's work together to move the dial on physical activity this decade!

Healthy People 2020 Hits the Trifecta!

sFranklin — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 21:01:00 -0400

Healthy People 2020's Physical Activity Objectives completes a trifecta of physical activity publications for physical activity professionals, advocates and enthusiasts. The first ever publication of a set of science based, government issued Physical Activity Guidelines were released in October of 2008 and May 2010 brought the launch of the nation's first health plan for physical activity, the National Physical Activity Plan.

The National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity is providing the leadership for implementation of the Physical Activity Plan. NCPPA recognized the importance of working to insure that the objectives listed in HP2020 be complementary to those included in the NPAP. Many NCPPA member organizations offered comments on the proposed HP2020 physical activity objectives as did the Coalition itself.

NCPPA recently published our first implementation report; Make The Move, 2010-2011 Implementation of the National Physical Activity Plan. Make the Move details the priorities identified in each of the sectors, states their goals and objectives and how they plan to achieve them and lists a variety of success stores as well.

Many of the physical activity objectives included in HP2020 physical parallel those identified as priorities by the NPAP sector implementation teams. A few examples are included below:

NPAP: Ensure that early childhood education settings for children ages 0 to 5 years promote and facilitate physical activity.

HP2020: Increase the number of States with licensing regulations for physical activity provided in child care.

NPAP: Encourage business and industry to interact with all other sectors to identify opportunities to promote physical activity within the workplace and throughout society

HP2020: Increase the proportion of employed adults who have access to and participate in employer-based exercise facilities and exercise programs.

NPAP: Prioritize resources and provide incentives to increase active transportation and other physical activity through community design, infrastructure projects, systems, policies, and initiatives.

HP2020: Increase legislative policies for the built environment that enhance access to and availability of physical activity opportunities.

The examples listed above are great ideas…but now the time has come to walk the walk rather than simply talk the talk…in other words, work together to make these things happen! Please visit the NCPPA website to sign your organization up to get involved with the implementation of the Nation's first Physical Activity Plan.

What is your organization doing in the areas listed above to increase the number of Americans achieving the PAG?

Healthy People 2020 and Solstice: Glimmers of Hope

JPivarnik — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 17:23:00 -0400

Dec. 21 marked the winter solstice (Northern Hemisphere), signaling the long-awaited return of longer days and the warmth of spring. The solstice, coinciding with traditional holiday celebrations, has always given hope to people struggling with the challenges of cold weather and long, dark nights.

The month of January offers more reason for hope in the form of Healthy People 2020, a collaborative process by which the CDC provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans. The proposed objectives for physical activity and fitness show the influence of ACSM and its members, including in-person testimony by Past President Angela Smith, M.D., FACSM and online comments by numerous members/experts.

ACSM was not a lone voice crying in the wilderness, however. Many experts, speaking alone or on behalf of professional societies and other organizations, cited the demonstrated importance of physical activity for health. Their consensus informs the plan, which includes baseline measures, 10-year targets and data sources.

A few observations:

Healthy People 2020 will serve as a companion to the National Physical Activity Plan (a frequent topic on this blog). The Plan provides a roadmap for achieving the changes needed to reach the targets spelled out in HP2020. Taken together—and taken seriously—the two can be transformative.
The baseline measures document the need. For example, 36.2 percent of adults engaged in no leisure-time physical activity in 2008, according to the CDC’s National Health Interview Survey.
The targets are modest, calling for a 10-percent improvement across the board. Surely, our nation can move the needle in 10 years so that, for instance, 8.7 percent of physician office visits include counseling about exercise.

The latter (part of Objective 11) was proposed by ACSM, expanding the original objective which called for counseling about exercise for patients with chronic diseases. Both embody the essence of Exercise is Medicine®. Acting on them would profoundly affect the well-being of millions of people and vastly reduce health care costs.

As we prepare for the chills of January, physical activity advocates will be warmed by the prospect of other objectives we have long supported. HP2020 also calls for the following, to choose a few:

Increasing the proportion of adults and adolescents who meet physical activity guidelines (Objectives 2 and 3, respectively).
More trips by walking (13) and bicycling (14).
Changes to the built environment to expand opportunities for physical activity (15). Sound familiar? This is a bedrock principle of the National Physical Activity Plan.
More physical education (4, 5) and recess (6, 7) in schools; less screen time for kids (8).
Opening public and private school facilities outside of school hours to provide opportunities for physical activity for the community (10).

Healthy People 2020 is comprehensive, measurable and laden with the potential for positive change—the fruit of a well-managed public/private collaboration. Implementing it falls to all of us: states, cities, communities, organizations of all types, and individuals. I propose we each seek our role, using the MAP-IT framework familiar to those involved with implementing public health interventions. Let’s insist on success and get to work on a decade of change.

Which objectives of Healthy People 2020 relate most directly to your work?
Which could have the greatest impact on your community?

Launch of Healthy People 2020

SLier — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 13:31:00 -0400

Dear Physical Activity Colleagues,

For thirty years, the Healthy People initiative has put forth a comprehensive set of health promotion and disease prevention objectives to track, monitor, and motivate action to improve the health of all people in the United States. As we prepare for the next decade, the Healthy People 2020 initiative aims to unify the national dialogue about health, motivate actions, and encourage new directions in health promotion, providing a public health roadmap and compass for the country. More than ever, the Healthy People vision of a society in which all people live long, healthy lives speaks to the challenges and opportunities we face each day, calling on us to improve population health by developing collaborative solutions that reach beyond health care.

It is with great excitement that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services invites you to be a part of the launch of Healthy People 2020. The event will take place on December 2, 2010, from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM EST at the Jack Morton Auditorium of The George Washington University, 805 21st Street NW, Washington, DC 20052.

This event will mark the beginning of Healthy People 2020 and the official release of the next decade’s national health promotion and disease prevention objectives. The program will include remarks from the HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Howard K. Koh and members of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for 2020. There will be an introduction and orientation to the Healthy People 2020 Web site and objectives, followed by a panel discussion about the uses of Healthy People 2020. You can ask live questions via Webcast and Twitter.

You have played an important role in developing Healthy People 2020. Now the real work begins! Similar to the past two decades, Healthy People 2020 will include Physical Activity as a topic area. As a key stakeholder, your work to implement Healthy People 2020 Physical Activity objectives throughout the decade will be critical to improving the health of the nation. Please consider following Healthy People on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/gohealthypeople. Registration for the event is strongly encouraged. Live Web streaming will also be available. Any questions regarding the event can be sent to healthypeople2020@air.org. To attend the launch or participate via Web streaming, register by visiting www.healthypeople.gov/2020_reg/register.aspx

Please join us and be part of making Healthy People come alive for all Americans.

Sincerely,

RADM Penelope Slade-Sawyer, P.T., M.S.W.

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health

(Disease Prevention and Health Promotion)

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Obesity’s Worst Enemy: A Compassionate, Informed Community

TRichards — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:47:00 -0400

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?

Physical Activity Draft Healthy People 2020 Objectives

SLier — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:37:00 -0400

What will it take to realize our aim of a nation of physically active people? While there’s no easy answer, I believe an important step towards this goal is to work together to create a shared vision and roadmap with measurable objectives. Now that Healthy People 2020 is well underway, we are in a position to make this vision and roadmap a reality. For three decades, Healthy People has collaborated with organizations across the nation to provide a set of science-based national 10-year health objectives for promoting health and preventing disease that include physical activity objectives.

We are now asking for you to weigh in on the draft physical activity objectives. We invite you to comment on the draft physical activity objectives now through December 31 when the comment period closes. With your help, we can all work to build a healthier Nation.

There are a couple of other ways you can get involved to help get the word out and encourage others to participate:

Show that you care by uploading a free Healthy People 2020 Web badge to your Web site or blog. Choose your size, and it is as easy as copying and pasting.
Join the Healthy People Consortium—a diverse, motivated, and dedicated group of agencies and organizations committed to working together to realize Healthy People’s goals and objectives.

Has your organization already participated in Healthy People 2020 or its past iterations? If not, will you be preparing comments for the draft objectives?