ALBD News

This issue focuses on the ALbD national program and community action model as well as the lessons learned from 15 ALbD grantee communities.

“We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us,” Winston Churchill once said. Today, there’s new meaning to Churchill’s often cited quote: A growing number of public health researchers blame our sprawling suburban landscapes in part for Americans’ bulging bellies.

If Americans would watch their steps, their weight might stop climbing the scales. That's the thinking behind several major efforts to inspire Americans to walk more. The latest, America on the Move, is a national initiative launching Monday with a straightforward goal: Get millions of people to wear inexpensive step counters and walk an additional 2,000 steps (about 1 mile) a day, or cut out 100 calories.

People who live in spread-out suburbs are on average 6 pounds heavier than urban dwellers and are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, hypertension, and other ills, according to the first national study linking health trends and where people live.

Slavic Village Development has won a $200,000 grant to get residents moving - not by car, but by foot and by bike. The money will be used to promote exercise in a variety of forms, from hip-hop for teens to yoga for seniors, as well as to plan a bike-and-hike trail through Kingsbury Run valley, says Bobbi Reichtell, development officer for Slavic Village Development. The nonprofit group serves the working-class neighborhoods North and South Broadway, which have a combined 35,000 residents.

Ho-Chunk Community Development Corp. has received a $200,000 grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The funds will be used to support Active-Living Winnebago, a local partnership to encourage healthier lifestyles. The grant will be dispersed over five years. Ho-Chunk Inc. will incorporate bicycle and walking paths into its Ho-Chunk Village, a planned community now under construction. It will also help create a five-year active living plan, establish bicycling and walking support groups, establish a Neighborhood Watch group and conduct Active-Living Winnebago events.

Recognizing the important role of physical activity in promoting healthier lifestyles, Active Living by Design and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) announced today the selection of 25 partnerships across the United States to increase active living, a way of life that integrates physical activity into daily routines. Each partnership will receive a $200,000 grant to address community design, land use, transportation, architecture, trails, parks and other issues that influence healthier lifestyles.

Colorado-based nonprofit Friends of the Center for Human Nutrition, received a $200,000 grant for the Active Living Partnership at Stapleton from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The grant is to help demonstrate that the neighborhoods designed to be pedestrian friendly -- like those at Stapleton -- can promote more active and healthy lifestyles.

Nashville will get a $200,000 grant for a project to encourage residents to exercise and follow healthier lifestyles, Mayor Bill Purcell has announced. Called Music City Moves!, the project weds promotion of physical activity and community planning.

Walking daily, if only to and from the grocery store, can do far more than improve fitness, a group of community planners and health experts says. Feet First, a non-profit organization working to promote the interests of pedestrians, believes that including foot time in everyday life supports the environment, bolsters the economy and can transform communities. Now it has won a $200,000 grant to put these ideas into action.