Healthy eating, healthy living parks partnership: A strategy to promote healthy eating and physical activity through environmental and policy changes

Parks are a vital part of healthy, livable communities. Parks and playgrounds are essential to physical and emotional health, and help to build more connected neighborhoods and communities. Kaiser Permanente, an integrated health care delivery system serving more than three million California members, and Parks and Recreation Departments in Chula Vista and Los Angeles developed a unique collaboration to address these issues in low-income neighborhoods with high rates of obesity and related illnesses. The Southern California HEAL Parks Partnerships (HPP) is a model that promotes healthy eating and physical activity at parks through its primary strategies of policy and environmental change. HPP activities seek to decrease obesity rates and reverse the rise in preventable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. Key components of the model include ensuring that government park funding is used in park-poor areas; implementation of a recently approved Child Nutrition Policy which focuses on increasing access to nutrition programs and creating environments where practicing healthy behaviors is easy; and leveraging relationships with government and non-governmental agencies to provide technical assistance and advocacy in support of park planning and development. Examples of outcomes for the communities served include increased use of neighborhood parks for physical activity; more nutritious meals served to children and seniors at parks; and increased availability of swim lessons and use of community pools in lower-income neighborhoods. This session will further discuss the key components and outcomes of the partnerships, the creation and maintenance of the partnership, and challenges/lessons learned from the HPP model.