Kaiser Permanente Encourages Parents to Walk Children to School

As part of the 12th annual International Walk and Roll to School Day, students at Kawana Elementary School in Santa Rosa created their own walking school bus.

Before turning on the ignition, think back to when you were child—when you walked to school. Relive those times, even it's just for a day.

As part of Safe Routes to School International Walk to School Day, Kaiser Permanente and Safe Route to School encourage parents to walk or bike with their children to school.

Safe Routes to School is a national and international movement to create safe, convenient, and fun opportunities for children to bicycle or walk to school.

Kaiser Permanente has joined the Safe Routes to School National Partnership to help communities build new bike lanes, pathways, and sidewalks, as well as to launch Safe Routes education, promotion, and enforcement campaigns in elementary and middle schools.

Programs and policies that promote walking and biking are a key part of what makes for healthy communities. This kind of work is at the center of Kaiser Permanente's Healthy Eating Active Living initiative — a major effort by the organization to increase access to healthy food, prevent obesity, and promote safe physical activity in the communities Kaiser Permanente serves.

An Opportunity to "Spread Health"

The program has been designed to reverse the decline in children walking or biking to school, and can also play a critical role in reversing the alarming nationwide trend toward childhood inactivity and obesity. Studies show that reducing even 150 calories a day — as many calories a kid could be expected to burn in a brisk 30 minute walk to and from school—can prevent obesity.

As much as 30 percent of morning traffic is caused by parents dropping off their children at school. Encouraging kids to walk and bike to school is a great way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to promote healthy lifestyles, said Ray Baxter, Senior Vice President of Community Benefit, Research and Health Policy.

In 1969, approximately 50 percent of children walked or bicycled to school, with nearly 87 percent of children living within one mile of their schools. Today, less than 15 percent of children walk or bicycle to school. As are result, kids today are more inactive, more dependent, and unhealthier than they were a generation or two ago.

"As a pediatrician, I am alarmed at the growing rates of obesity and high blood pressure that I have seen in my practice over the last 20 years," wrote Scott Gee, MD, in a letter he sent to the San Francisco Chronicle and the Contra Costa Times. Dr. Gee lobbied the governor's office to secure state funds for the Safe Routes to School program.

"Research suggests that walking an hour a day could help prevent many cases of childhood obesity and can also help reduce blood pressure," he said.

Kaiser Permanente's Role

Kaiser Permanente is advocating for more resources for state and local Safe Routes programs, walking and bike trails, and other places for people to safely get physical activity as part of everyday life.

Nationally, regionally, and locally, Kaiser Permanente has made grants to organizations that are implementing Safe Routes to School strategies ranging from educating parents and students about the benefits of physical activity on academic performance to encouraging policymakers to implement traffic calming tactics and crosswalk zebra striping.

Here are some examples of how Kaiser Permanente is supporting Safe Routes in Northern California:

• School Routes To School program was presented at 30 schools with nearly 20,000 students.
• Developed an 'Out of the Box Pedestrian Safety Training' for the entire San Lorenzo Unified School District physical education department, as well as for physical education instructors at several individual schools and after-school programs.
• Produced 17 different tools and educational materials, with each available in English and Spanish. Several are also in Vietnamese and Cantonese.
• Presentations to more than 50 parent gatherings, and held 18 Walk to School Day trainings and 15 pedestrian safety trainings.