Promoting Physical Activity: A Guide for Community Action

Motivating people to get moving for health and wellness just got easier with Promoting Physical Activity, Second Edition. This guide for community action offers the tools and information you need to help people get off the couch and on their way to healthy living. If you want to encourage your community or group members to hop on their bike, take the stairs, or walk the neighborhood, Promoting Physical Activity, Second Edition, is for you.

Whether you have just become interested in promoting physical activity or are experienced in health and wellness promotion but need new ideas to improve or expand existing programs, this user-friendly resource has the tools you need:

•Information on the benefits of physical activity, such as obesity prevention and management of chronic disease, and goals and guidelines for physical activity that will help you make a case for your intervention programs

•A practical overview of recommended evidence-based interventions with advice and examples that will help you carry out the interventions in your community

•A flexible blueprint for planning, implementing, and evaluating programs in any community setting, whether alone or in partnership with other organizations

•An extensive list of additional resources to assist you in planning interventions, including a directory of agencies and organizations interested in physical activity promotion, excerpts from the Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity and Health, and suggested readings for building your knowledge of physical activity promotion

•Real-world examples, suggestions, and tips from a variety of settings to give you multiple perspectives on planning community-based interventions

The newly updated second edition of Promoting Physical Activity discusses emerging topics related to physical activity and public health with a renewed focus on community-wide physical activity interventions. You’ll find up-to-date summaries of the national health objectives and the latest physical activity recommendations for adults, children, and older adults, which can serve as a foundation for your programs. You’ll also find a more in-depth exploration of establishing partnerships in order to enhance the effectiveness and reach of your programs and an expanded discussion of program evaluation.

With Promoting Physical Activity, Second Edition, you don’t have to be an expert in physical activity promotion in order to succeed in getting people moving. The book translates current research into accessible practice, laying out all the information you need to create an intervention that meets your community’s needs. First you’ll look at why physical activity is important and how much activity is needed for general health. Then you’ll learn about three general approaches to promoting physical activity— informational, social and behavioral, and environmental and policy—as well as eight types of interventions that research shows are effective in group and community settings. This will help you choose the strategy or combination of strategies that works best for the people you want to reach.

Armed with this information, you’ll be ready to move on to program implementation and evaluation. In addition to the nuts and bolts of planning, you’ll explore topics such as creating effective partnerships, setting program objectives, and measuring program success.

Promoting Physical Activity: A Guide for Community Action, Second Edition, is an essential resource filled with advice, ideas, inspiration, and education to help you bring health and wellness to your community. It provides the information—both scientific and practical—to help you energize existing physical activity intervention programs and use physical activity as a pathway to improving the health and quality of life of those in your community.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the nation’s premier public health agency, working to ensure healthy people in a healthy world.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting public health activities in the United States. CDC’s focus is not only on scientific excellence but also on the essential spirit that is CDC—to protect the health of all people. CDC keeps humanity at the forefront of its mission to ensure health protection through promotion, prevention, and preparedness.

CDC’s, Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity (DNPAO) is part of the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. DNPAO’s vision, mission, and goals are:

DNPAO’s vision – a world where regular physical activity, good nutrition, and healthy weight are part of everyone's life.

DNPAO’s mission – to lead strategic public health efforts to prevent and control obesity, chronic disease, and other health conditions though regular physical activity and good nutrition.

DNPAO’s goals:

•Increase health-related physical activity through population-based approaches.

•Improve those aspects of dietary quality most related to the population burden of chronic disease and unhealthy child development.

•Decrease prevalence of obesity through preventing excess weight gain and maintenance of healthy weight loss.