The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has launched what it calls “a comprehensive campaign to attack Americans’ sedentary habits.” The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Transcript
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has launched what it calls “a comprehensive campaign to
attack Americans’ sedentary habits.” The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Those involved in the ambitious campaign say they want to change the mindset of a country
which has engineered physical activity out of daily life – with the result that 60% of Americans
are now either overweight or obese. The campaign will help redesign communities originally
designed for the car, so people can walk or bike to destinations. But there’s a right way and a
wrong way to go about that redesign, according to public health expert Rich Killingsworth.
“Many communities are simply just putting in the facility of a sidewalk and forgetting about where it’s connected to and who it’s
connected to and who will it be used by.”
Killingsworth says another pitfall is people aren’t in the habit of biking or walking where they
want to go, which means they may not automatically use the new greenways, bike paths or
sidewalks. So the Foundation is also funding community public health campaigns to encourage people to become more active.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.