Featured Programs & Activities
Advancing Policies to Promote Healthy Eating and Active Living in King County

A new resolution endorsed by the King County Board of Health on March 15, 2007 advances the county's efforts to support healthy eating and active living. Resolution 07-03 builds on the work of the King County Obesity Prevention Initiative and the 10-point plan previously adopted by the Board. Through the new resolution, the Board sought to raise awareness and advocate for evidence-based policies and programs to address obesity. Specifically, the resolution supports school-based nutrition and physical activity programs, access to parks and recreation, active transportation, and breastfeeding. These strategies were generated with the input provided by hundreds of community members and professionals in workgroups and forums over the last two years.

The resolution highlights several concerns related to physical activity:

• Lack of physical activity continues to be a public health problem affecting nearly all populations, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, or socio-economic status.
• Certain populations (e.g. minority and youth) have unequal access to quality recreation programs, bike trails and lanes, parks and open spaces, playfields, and public pools.
• Walking and bicycling are highly functional forms of transportation and sources of physical activity, but have become more difficult as the public right-of-way is increasingly designed, constructed, and maintained for automobiles.

To address these issues, the Board advocates for:

• Investments in park and recreation programs and facilities in ways that assure equitable access to opportunities for physical activity across King County.
• Development of health and physical activity objectives in parks and recreation planning.
• Development of a standard of adequate access to quality public park and recreation resources.
• Incorporating agreed upon measures of leisure-time physical activity and active park visits into public health and recreation surveillance systems.
• All King County municipalities to prepare and implement pedestrian and bicycle master plans.
• Investments for active transportation throughout King County.
• Development of a public media campaign to promote use of active transportation, highlighting active transportation successes within King County.

Partners

The King County Overweight Prevention Initiative is sponsored by the King County Board of Health, the University of Washington Exploratory Center for Obesity Research and Center for Public Health Nutrition, and Public Health - Seattle & King County. Over 100 local participants have been meeting since 2004 to identify community strategies and work together to make healthy lifestyles easier to attain communities throughout King County.

Featured: Winter 2007