The Built Environment, Activity, and Walking

This weekend's incredibly gorgeous weather forecast has me eagerly anticipating a lot of time in the sunshine, and thinking about what a huge impact the built environment can have on people in innumerable ways.

Today, a friend sent me a link to Not Just Child’s Play, an article in BU Today about a study that has found that renovated playgrounds appear to improve the MCAS math scores of kids who attend those schools. It may be that a nice playground makes kids feel more invested in school, or more valued, or it may mean they're more likely to run around and be active over the course of the day. Who knows, but whatever the cause, there seems to be a connection between the built environment around schools and kids' ability to learn.

Similarly, another friend send me a link to Brain Gains, a feature focusing on the huge benefit to learning that physical activity provides. Many of us live in environments that don't encourage, or actively discourage physical activity and movement over the course of the day, and an increasing body of research suggests that this is bad for our physical health, mental health, learning, productivity and mood.

Is your physical environment encouraging you to be active? Do you have sidewalks or trails where you can walk? Can you easily cross streets and do you enjoy greenery and clean streets in your neighborhood? Are there places to walk to, if you want to run errands on foot?

Increasingly, it appears that the answers to these questions have implications not merely for how much you walk but also for how you feel, how friendly and welcoming your neighborhood is, how much crime takes place there, and the price of homes there. We at WalkBoston often wrestle with the perception of walking as a "pedestrian" activity that people take for granted, but pedestrian advocacy is important because it connects to almost every element of our lives.

Physical activity guidelines

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released their 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (that link will take you to the summary of their recommendations). In even more summary form: The findings won't surprise anyone. The recommendation is that people should engage in physical activity. Some is better than none and more (quantity, intensity, frequency) is better.

I have a couple of problems with these guidelines:

First, I believe the "some is better than none" message gets obscured by the "more is better" message. I see it as being easy for people to feel discouraged by their perception that they aren't doing enough, and thereby doing even less, because they're never going to reach the recommended amounts of activity, so what's the point? So, let me say: Some is better than none! Get up and walk around the block, or walk to the store, or walk around your house while you're talking on the phone or brushing your teeth or waiting for your spouse to get ready to head out the door. Making small changes to your habits can be an effective way to increase your activity level and make it easier to make larger changes.

Second, the guidelines are, predictably, in a very structured format. I mean, hey, that's what guidelines are, right? But I don't see this as a particularly organic way for people to integrate activity into their lives. I know there are people who look at it as a checklist item with a set-aside time-frame, and that's great, but for the rest of us, hearing that we should be aiming for 2.5 hours of moderate physical activity each week is a little abstract. What does that mean for me?

Finally, this is a great example of how we put our activities in different categories and don't let them blend between each other. Work for 8 hours a day, exercise for 30 minutes a day, sleep for 8 hours, etc. To my thinking, this makes physical activity a chore to be checked off a list rather than a pleasurable component of a good, healthy, happy life.

So, I know the US Department of Health and Human Services can't say something like this, and they might not even agree with it, but my guidelines for physical activity are a little more lax: Get up and move. Make it a habit. Make it a part of your life that doesn't take any serious thought or feel like a chore. Move because it makes you feel good, and it helps you see your neighborhood and your world or because it gives you time to think or not to think. Be active for yourself and for whatever reasons speak to you most. Want to join me for a walk? Let's!