Feeling a spring in your step?

March 5, 2010

It's over a month since Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, and we're still in for a few more weeks of winter.  Although the official vernal equinox comes on March 20 this year, the El Niño weather patterns aren't due to moderate until after March. Thus, we're not out of the heavy weather yet.  Nonetheless, by now most of us are anxious to crawl out of our Snuggies ^TM and start shedding the winter-holiday-Superbowling-Olympic-bingeing pounds we added this season. It's  probably time we all joined Mrs. Obama's Let's Move  campaign to reduce childhood obesity by doing a little moving ourselves.   Unfortunately, the Philadelphia region continues to need a little more coaxing than most in this arena. 

You'll recall that about 10 years ago, a survey conducted by  Men's Fitness magazine found the  city of Philadelphia to be the least fit among the 50 most populous  American cities. By 2009's survey, we had improved to number 31. Don't get too excited. This is probably more a function of the growth of fast food restaurants in places like Las Vegas and Miami, and continuing rising national obesity rates than any change on our part, however.  This is made clear by an excellent data source, The County Health Rankings, a compendium of data on health factors and outcomes from MATCH, the Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH) project. MATCH is a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. This web-enabled data base provides matching reports and data from every county in the country about health issues from mortality and low birth weight to diet, exercise, tobacco use, education, and access to medical care. It's health policy wonk paradise.

Looking at the range of data from the eleven counties of the Greater Philadelphia region in comparison is fascinating.  (I have a feeling Men's Fitness was not looking at child poverty rates to determine "fitness" of the population). The most interesting relationship to me, however, is the apparent lack of one between high school graduation rates and obesity.   While nine Greater Philly county educational attainment rates are higher than those of the fittest counties, except for Salt Lake, only Chester and  Mercer have a lower obesity rate. Five Greater Philadelphia counties have higher obesity rates despite having higher educational attainment rates than most of the fittest counties. Seemingly, there's not a direct relationship between high school graduation rates and obesity. Denver's high school graduation rate is lower than Philadelphia's, and yet their obesity rate is almost half! And when I checked on Marin County in California (the healthiest ranked county in California and one of the premier Bay area places to live) with a 17% obesity level, they had a 100% high school graduation rate. Clearly, it's a more complicated story.

Okay, so we're smart enough to know we need to exercise as much as all those folks out west. (In fact the entire state of Colorado appears to be wraithlike with a state average percent obesity level of 19% versus PA at 28% and NJ at 24%). What should we do? Truthfully, the region makes it easy.  Try joining the Philadelphia Regional YMCA.  For one very reasonable fee, you automatically join all 12 southeast Pennsylvania locations.  There also are YMCAs in every New Jersey county.  Even easier is simply to get out and walk or bike ride in one of the many wonderful parks around.  The best listing by far on line is at the visitphilly.com site under "nature-parks-gardens." The official New Jersey state website has listings for the area.  Plus my favorite titled website for New Castle is the Get Up and Do Something website.

The region abounds in natural beauty outdoors, and soon the weather will cooperate. So tune up that Schwinn, turn off the Tivo, lace up the Nikes and open the front door.  Better health, fitness, and a lower number on the scale await you!

-- Judy Tschirgi, Senior Executive Fellow