Step It Up!: The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Promote Walking and Walkable Communities [Internet]

Excerpt

This Call to Action presents five goals and supporting implementation strategies that are grounded in scientific and practice-based evidence. These goals call for action by multiple sectors of society, including transportation, land use, and community design; parks, recreation, and fitness; education (schools, colleges, and universities); business and industry; volunteer and nonprofit; health care; media; and public health. Families and individuals will also need to be involved to achieve these goals.

This Call to Action complements existing recommendations to help Americans become more physically active, such as those found in the National Prevention Strategy: America’s Plan for Better Health and Wellness and the Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity Within a Generation: White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity Report to the President, as well as the national health objectives for physical activity in Healthy People 2020. It also aligns with the goals of initiatives such as Let’s Move!, the Go4Life Campaign, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safer People, Safer Streets Initiative, the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative, and the Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

In addition, this Call to Action builds on the National Physical Activity Plan, which was developed by public and private partners to provide a comprehensive set of policies, programs, and initiatives that can help all people become more physically active and meet the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. It also reflects comments received in response to a request for information (78 FR 19491) published in the Federal Register on April 1, 2013. More than 750 comments were received from the public, state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, and professional organizations. All comments were carefully considered in the preparation of this Call to Action.