Active People, Healthy Nation℠ - CDC [Podcast Series]

• [:54] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Ken Rose

  • Ken is CDC Chief, Physical Activity and Health Branch, Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity.

• [1:16] Active People, Healthy Nation goal

  • “And so Active People really was an effort to build cohesion across a number of national public health partners to create a brand for physical activity and support the work that we do at CDC. So Active People, Healthy Nation, 27 million by 2027, is an important tagline and important for us to understand.  And just to directly answer your question it was based on a doubling of the Healthy People 2030 goal. But what's more important is that it's an effort to build a culture of physical activity in this country that we all know that we sorely need.”

• [3:53] Health benefits of physical activity

  • “So what I do think is really critical to understand at this point, particularly this time and place, is that physical activity is a critical investment in mental health in this country right now.  We know that there's so many benefits of physical activity and even traditionally we talk about the chronic disease benefits. But what I really want people to understand now is that there are fundamental mental health benefits to physical activity that are really critical for us coming out of the pandemic, rewiring ourselves into whatever this new normal becomes and helping us build more resilient communities.”

  • “And I think one of the things that we have to recognize as a result of the pandemic is that having places for people to be active and ways in which for them to be active in times of national crisis really is an essential function, not a nice function to have. It is an essential component of our infrastructure.” 

• [7:31] Framing physical activity as essential

  • “So it is important for us to understand as professionals that we need to make that bridge to the fact that physical activity can be fun.  It isn't a no pain, no gain equation.  It is an equation that means going for a walk with friends. It's a recreational experience that we really need to bridge to when we talk about going out for that walk or doing that bout of physical activity, enjoying your time with your friends, thinking of it as a recreational quality of life experience.”

• [12:23] Pandemic preparedness planning

  • “There's an article currently in peer review from our Physical Activity Policy Research and Evaluation Network that talks about what jurisdictions actually did implement from a physical activity perspective as a result of the pandemic. Both the restrictions that we saw early on of the playgrounds, but also the opening of streets that I mentioned earlier. And so I do think we need to translate that academic research that will be coming out and we need to make sure it gets into the right channels, in those planning channels, so that communities understand that we don't forget those lessons moving forward.” 

• [15:31] Active People, Healthy Nation strategies

  • “And what I hope your listeners will understand is that they are probably already doing something in our strategies for increasing physical activity.  And if you just Google Active People, Healthy Nation strategies for increasing physical activity, this will come up right in front of you.  But these strategies are important because what they do is they translate the community guide for preventive services recommendations. And those recommendations are based on the most robust science that exists on behavior change and policy systems and environmental change.”

• [21:34] Cross-sector collaboration

  • “We recognize that the public health sector alone is not going to change the culture of physical activity in this country.  The healthcare sector is not going to change the culture. The fitness sector is not going to change the culture. So it is really important that we think about other sectors that we can bring to the table and speak their language in ways that they can see their work and the importance of promoting physical activity.”

• [27:04] Call to action

  • “People don't understand how fundamentally important physical activity is for their health. It is literally one of the best things you can do today, tomorrow and 10 years from now. So I'll leave it there. I hope everybody goes out and gets a walk today, at least 30 minutes.”