Photo Credit: San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department
When the San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department in Texas opted to incorporate outdoor fitness equipment into a citywide healthy-lifestyles initiative in 2010, staff members had no idea how popular and effective the equipment would become in the fight to reduce obesity and encourage physical activity in a city more known for its mouth-watering Mexican cuisine than a culture of fitness.
“We were approached by the Metropolitan Health District and asked to come up with innovative ways to combat obesity, which has a direct correlation to diabetes, one of the big health challenges in a predominately Hispanic population,” explains Sandy Jenkins, Park Projects Manager for San Antonio’s Parks Department. “Outdoor fitness equipment was just beginning to be marketed by playground manufacturing companies. We decided to incorporate the fitness equipment into parks with walking trails as part of a grant proposal led by the Health Department.”
With the assistance of an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grant from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the department has installed the equipment in 33 parks throughout the city. Additionally, fitness stations are now available at five municipal libraries.