Action alert: fight childhood obesity with SRTS

Mar 24

The Safe Routes to School (SRTS) National Partnership needs our help to make biking and walking to school part of the nation's efforts to combat childhood obesity:

Last month, First Lady Michelle Obama announced the Let's Move initiative to solve the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation. An important component of that effort is the new Task Force on Childhood Obesity, created by President Obama. Made up of federal agencies, the Task Force is charged with developing a comprehensive interagency national action plan on childhood obesity. The Task Force is asking for input and ideas from the public. The Safe Routes to School National Partnership will be submitting detailed comments.

But, we need your help to make sure that Safe Routes to School is recommended by as many individuals and organizations as possible from around the country. Sharing your local, state or national perspective on Safe Routes to School will help the Task Force understand the breadth of the Safe Routes to School movement. The deadline for submitting comments is this Friday, March 26, 2010.

Here's how you can help:
1. Go to the Regulations.gov website at: http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#submitComment?R=0900006...

2. Fill out the form with your contact information. In the "pillar your comment relates to" box, select "2 - Physical Activity."

3. In the comments box, please write in a few sentences about Safe Routes to School. We have provided some bullets below which you can include - but we encourage you to put your message in your own words and share information specific to your community or organization.

Talking Points:

•An important way of increasing physical activity levels for children is to get more children to walk and bicycle to and from school, which builds physical activity into their daily lives.

•The federal Safe Routes to School program, funded through the US Department of Transportation by SAFETEA-LU, makes it safer for more children to walk and bicycle to school. It addresses safety challenges through engineering, education and enforcement and by changing the habits and attitudes of parents and children towards active transportation through encouragement activities.

•Safe Routes to School is creating neighborhoods that are safer for families to be physically active on a more regular basis through more sidewalks, bike lanes, pathway, and safer crossings.

•I encourage you to make sure that the federal Safe Routes to School program is included and strengthened as part of the Task Force's recommendations as well as the First Lady's awareness campaign.

Thank you very much for your help. If you have any questions, please contact Margo Pedroso at margo@saferoutespartnership.org.