Commentary; Posted: 8/1/07
Promoting good health a good idea
By Don Heinzman
Stay healthy, avoid high medical bills/insurance premiums. The best way to avoid high medical bills and insurance premiums is to stay healthy.
That simple approach is the basis for a host of community-based programs designed to keep residents healthy through more exercise and better nutrition. Diseases that cost the most to cure or arrest, such as stroke, heart attacks and diabetes, are easiest to prevent.
Communities are addressing physical fitness and walking to keep residents healthy.
Eight cities in Dakota County are involved in a Simple Steps Walking program managed through the Dakota County Public Health Department. Since the program began in April, some 1000 have signed up to walk individually or in teams.
By Aug. 15, there could be 1500 walking, many who did not exercise at all before the program began.
Members who follow the program are eligible for prizes including sling packs, pedometers and gift certificates.
It’s easy to join by going to the web site www.DakotaCounty.us and finding “Simple Steps” and signing on. People can either form a group or join an existing group.
Follow-up data shows that 82 percent of the participants are women, with 70 percent saying they hadn’t been active in an exercise program for 30 days.
In the fall, Dakota County Public Health is planning to have a conference on obesity, particularly on young people.
The Governor’s Fit-City-in-Minnesota program has motivated cities to promote physical fitness. To qualify, a city must adopt a resolution affirming the importance of fitness and demonstrate if it has inviting places to walk, has sponsored at least one fitness activity and developed recreation areas.
The first to get the designation was Wabasha, honored for developing walking and biking paths, making the pool available for women’s water aerobics class, publishing weekly health education columns in the local newspaper and conducting health screenings.
One city in Dakota County, Eagan, has been designated a Governor’s Fit-City, because it has a total physical fitness approach. The Eagan City Council first approved a resolution affirming it as an activity friendly city.
The city first looked at its assets: 110 miles of walking trails, its 54 parks, 350 lakes and ponds and community center, waterpark and ice arena. It began to build programs on those assets, such as having arena softball in the ice arena summers.
It is enlisting corporations to promote bicycling to work, but discovered the companies need to install showers and have bike racks.
Eagan developed a place for residents to walk in the winter, making sure the area is plowed.
Through the Eagan Park and Recreation Department, the city is taking the fitness program on the road to corporations and neighborhood park pavilions, hoping to get neighbors to walk and exercise together.
In a redevelopment plan taking shape in the Cedar Grove area, the city is making sure it has ample walking paths.
More information about the fitness progress program can be found at www.health.state.mn.us/fitcity.
Promoting good health programs is something a city can and should do for its residents.
Forest Lake Times
P.O. Box 218
880 SW 15 St.
Forest Lake, MN 55025
651-464-4601
Fax 651-464-4605