How to Make Every Park a Destination for Fitness

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Fitness in the Park San Antonio
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Are people in your city physically inactive?

Community leaders in largely Latino San Antonio knew people weren’t active enough, and had high risk of heart disease, diabetes, asthma, stroke, depression, stress, and more.

So the city’s Parks and Recreation Department helped launch Fit Pass and Fitness in the Park—two accessible, affordable strategies to attract Latino and all residents to be active at local parks and improve their mental and physical health.

The city’s excited progress is featured in a new Rivard Report article and Salud Heroes story by Amanda Merck of Salud America!, a national Latino childhood obesity prevention network based at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio.

For Fitness in the Park, city health worker Pete Garcia and his team developed a plan in 2011 to provide free fitness classes, like boot camp, yoga, and Zumba, in parks across the city, with equal representation across all 10 City Council districts.

The program, eventually taken over by the Parks Department, has since grown ever since.

Fitness in the Park expanded from 2,502 classes and 23,424 participants in 2013 to an estimated 6,650 classes and 67,000 participants in 2016.

For Fit Pass, Parks Department worker Michael Baldwin and his team explored an idea to attract people to parks with a wellness scavenger hunt.

Baldwin and his team developed a city-wide, stamp-and-passport wellness scavenger hunt and physical activity initiative, called Fit Pass, using available funds through the City for a health and fitness initiative, as well as through previously established partnerships.

Fit Pass bilingual passports contain free and low-cost physical activity, wellness, and nutrition activities provided by the Parks Department, YMCA, H-E-B, and many more partners.

Participants receive a stamp in their passport when they participate in the activity.

Urge your city to implement a similar program!

Merck’s article is part of a series to highlight challenges and solutions to Latino health and obesity by online news outlet The Rivard Report and Salud America!.

Check out past articles in the series:

Stay tuned for more articles!

By The Numbers By The Numbers

20.7

percent

of Latino kids have obesity (compared to 11.7% of white kids)

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