Win awards for healthy lifestyles - Tip-Off

Parks & Recreation, March, 2003

If you attended the NRPA National Congress & Exposition in Tampa, you heard Lynn Swann, chair of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, communicate the importance of park and recreation agencies for our nation's health and fitness agenda. He asked our profession to help Americans of all ages to be physically active every day. Now he's giving us a tool to help get the job done.

The Presidential Active Lifestyle Awards are designed to help Americans of all ages commit to being active for life. By engaging in regular physical activity five days a week for six weeks, participants can earn an award patch.

There are no fitness requirements or tests. Adults must complete at least 30 minutes a day of physical activity five days a week; the standard for children is 60 minutes. The award is for any kind of movement, such as walking, sweeping the floor, taking the stairs instead of elevators, using a pedometer to accumulate steps or active play. This award is easy to incorporate into current fitness programs and can be done multi-generationally as well.

In the future, according to Swarm, Americans will be able to track their activities on a new President's Challenge Web site that's under development. The site will be free, interactive and available to recreation centers, hospitals, health care providers, schools--any individual, business, or organization that wants to promote the active lifestyle. In the meantime, individuals can start earning an award using a paper activity log available through the Council. Participation is free, although there's a nominal fee for the award itself, an embroidered Presidential patch and certificate.

You can get activity logs for the Presidential Active Lifestyle Awards by calling 202-690-9000 or downloading them from www.presidentschallenge.org and www.fitness.gov.