Joining Forces to Promote Healthy, Active Lifestyles - President's Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition [Podcast Series]

The Honorable Rob Wilkins is retired US Air Force Master Sergeant and member of the President's Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition (PCSFN).

“And he talked about the importance of physical activity and that the President of the United States thought so much of this fitness and the importance of it that he decided to put a council together that Arnold was the chairperson. So I said, One day, I'll be a part of it. And then fast forward to 2018. And fortunately, I was appointed. And I am now serving on my second presidential appointment with the President's Council on Physical Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. So I'm living a dream.”

“So I remember like all these lessons that come through life we learned on the playground many many many years ago. And if we would just take those lessons and keep using them in our daily lives, I think we'd all be better off.”

“Fast forward to 2023, and we're still concerned about the same thing that we were concerned about 67 years ago and, actually, we're probably even worse off now post COVID. Recent statistics say there are about 31.8 million young men and women eligible between 17 and 24 to serve our country. Out of that about 420,000 can serve. And the propensity to serve is about 2-3%, meaning those who do want to serve our country. So we're in a dire straight for national security and military readiness with regards to those who can and want to serve our nation's militaries.”

“The research and the statistics show that a healthy nation is a more productive, a more secure nation. And when our health care costs are going through the roof where we can't sustain the costs, that's a problem for our nation. But more importantly, as you get down to the individual, there’s your lifespan and your health span. And that health span, you want to make that extend as long as possible.”

“By using our megaphone by using our voice, but I also think by joining forces by bringing more groups together—so be it the VFW, Move to Live More, schools, individuals—all these voices coming together in one big cruise ship liner or something like that. We have more voice, we have more power working together, as opposed to each person trying to do this individually. So by bringing these voices together, we combine resources, we combine skills...”

“So the National Youth Sports Strategy is basically a way that we bring people together so that every child or every adult or everyone who wants to play has a chance to play. Everyone who wants to get a chance on that field—be it no matter what your age, your capabilities—it doesn't matter about limitations, there are no limitations. You get on the field, and you do what you can do.”

“And they found so much success because now these kids belong to a community, they belong somewhere where they're wanted, where they have expectations, where they have to maintain good grades, where there's people looking out for them. And they're still playing sport.”

“And I think those are great lessons that we're going to be knocked down many times in life, but you don't quit. You keep moving forward. And the lessons that you learned on the field, on the court, moving, will help you later on in life. Or throughout your life, actually.”

“Many people, they want to try to do good things, but based on the resources they have available or where they live, there are some challenges with it. So I thought, what can we do? So maybe running outside is not the best for you, but how about jogging in place? How about doing something called, well, there are push ups during commercials, I tell people like if they don't want to really set some time aside, maybe during a commercial of your favorite show, it’s usually about 60 seconds to 90 seconds, you can do push ups, crunches, jumping jacks, running in place, just movement. And for some of them, they never thought about that before. And they decided to do it.”

“So if we can bring them into the fold and share their experiences and share their knowledge, share their wisdom, we might be able to make some inroads because there are smart people out there like yourselves doing a lot of great things, but you need more help. And so if the President's Council can use their message, if they can use the Surgeon General to help with a message delivery, if we can tap into some celebrities or some sports stars to help promote the work we're doing, then maybe those are things that we need to do…”

“So the earlier that a child learns about physical activity and sports, I think we can start having them become lifetime members of this club of enjoying physical activity…”

“And asking people what really gets you motivated about it is a key component. And I think for a while we kind of got past that. We were kind of telling people what we wanted them to do, as opposed to, here are some different options.”

“And then you can send us an email, can maybe tell us about some of the things that you're doing in your local communities, what you're doing that is successful. And maybe that's something that we can amplify and share with our growing database of folks.”

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