Friday, August 12, 2016

Is Your School a Part of the "Safe Routes to School" Program?

When I was planning my solo run across the Mojave Desert, I got in touch with the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program. They helped to promote my running adventure to schools in the USA so that children could trek along with me virtually by logging distance while going to and from school.

 SRTS programs are sustained efforts by parents, schools, community leaders and local, state, and federal governments to improve the health and well-being of children by enabling and encouraging them to walk and bicycle to school. I think it's a wonderful and worthwhile program!

Children today are simply not getting enough physical activity, contributing to growing rates of obesity and obesity-related health problems. SRTS projects make it safer for more children to walk and bicycle to school, which helps to address and combat the obesity crisis among children.

The SRTS statistics show:
  • Over the past 40 years, rates of obesity have soared among children of all ages in the United States, and approximately 25 million children and adolescents — more than 33% — are now overweight or obese, or at risk of becoming so.
  • Kids are less active today, and 23% of children get no free time physical activity at all.
  • The prevalence of obesity is so great that today’s generation of children may be the first in over 200 years to live less healthy and have a shorter lifespan than their parents.
  • High rates of obesity and low rates of physical activity mean that more than half of Latina girls are expected to get diabetes over the course of their lifetime, and the numbers are almost as high for African American girls.
  • Today, approximately one-quarter of health care costs in the United States are attributable to obesity, and health care costs just for childhood obesity are estimated at approximately $14 billion per year.
  • People living in auto-oriented suburbs drive more, walk less, and are more obese than people living in walkable communities. For each hour of driving per day, obesity increases 6 percent, but walking for transportation reduces the risk of obesity.
  • Walking one mile to and from school each day is two-thirds of the recommended sixty minutes of physical activity a day. Plus, children who walk to school have higher levels of physical activity throughout the day.
SRTS programs also benefit academic performance through the physical fitness that it encourages children to do!
  • Physical activity and fitness boost learning and memory in children; fitness-associated performance benefits are largest for those situations in which initial learning is the most challenging.
  • Sixth- and ninth-grade students with high fitness scored significantly better on math and social studies tests compared with less fit students, even after controlling for socioeconomic status. Muscular strength and muscular endurance were significantly associated with academic achievement in all grades.
  • Lower performing students appear to derive particular benefit from physical activity.  In addition, short bicycling exercise periods resulted in enhanced neuronal activity and increased cognitive performance for teenagers with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
  • When children get physical activity before class, they are more on task and fidget less.  This is true for both girls and boys, and has been shown to be particularly beneficial for children who have the most trouble paying attention and those with attention deficit disorders.
SRTS projects focus on infrastructure improvements, student traffic education, and driver enforcement that improve safety for children, many of whom already walk or bicycle in unsafe conditions.
  • People walking are more than twice as likely to be struck by a vehicle in locations without sidewalks.
  • More than 7% of high school students reported missing at least one day of school in the past 30 days because they felt unsafe from bullying or violence either at school or on their way to or from school.
  • A safety analysis by the California Department of Transportation estimated that the safety benefit of SRTS caused a 49 percent decrease in the childhood bicycle and pedestrian collision rates.
SRTS projects increase the number of children walking and bicycling to school, which also cuts down on the number of cars. As cars emit pollutants for each mile traveled, reducing traffic can improve the quality of air that children breathe in and around their schools.
  • Children exposed to traffic pollution are more likely to have asthma, permanent lung deficits, and a higher risk of heart and lung problems as adults.
  • Over the last 25 years, among children ages 5 to 14, there has been a 74 percent increase in asthma cases. In addition, 14 million days of school are missed every year due to asthma.
  • One-third of schools are in “air pollution danger zones.”
  • Schools that are designed so children can walk and bicycle have measurably better air quality.
  • A 5% increase in a neighborhood’s “walkability” reduces vehicle miles traveled by 6%.
I was born in 1965 and research shows that if we could return to mid-1960's levels of walking and bicycling to school it would save 3.2 billion vehicle miles, 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide, and 89,000 tons of other pollutants — equal to keeping more than 250,000 cars off the road for a year! I believe our society has benefited a lot from 'advancements' over the years, but I wish that we could return to the frequency of walking/bicycling to school as we did 50 years ago.

From Him, Through Him, For Him (Romans 11:36),

Paul J. Staso
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