An Overview of the Physical Activity Environment Paper Example

Introduction

The specific place tends to define the physical activity environment, the focus on the attributes of the created environment that are impacted by the set policies may help to promote physical activity. There are various forms of built environment variables that are associated with physical activities and these may include, pedestrian-oriented paths designs, land-use diversity.

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The built environment is associated by several factors such as transportation infrastructure and means and land use planning and policies which can influence physical activities in several platforms (Saelens, 2003). Moreover, the built environment entails the building, the street and community scale. And these entire environmental factors seem to have a great significance on the physical activities and ultimate health factors.

The various approaches that enhance the use of energy have to be regarded as one of the contributors to several health complications such as obesity; therefore, an initiation is required for encouraging. physical activity at the community and individual levels.it should be noted that the level of energy expenditure in individuals depends on various factor s like age, gender, genetics, and physical fitness.to have an insight into the health based on the physical activities, the paper has emphasized different factors such as the methods of measuring the built environment, implications of frequently assessed variables, and relevance to populations of assessing the built environment; methods used to promote the physical activities of communities and the impact on communities of such policies and also the issues in measuring the food environment among underserved populations(Giles and Donovan,2002).

Methods of measuring the built environment, implications of frequently assessed variables, and relevance to populations of assessing the built environment

In America today, it is actually of value to note that physical activity is one of the very crucial health issues. The international health organizations have also given much attention to the problem of physical activities as a significant population is increasing weight uncontrollably. The researchers and the health experts have identified the links between the various elements of the physical built environment and the recommended physical activities. There are a number of methods which have used in measuring the built environment among the population and these include the observational measures which are always being obtained by using the audit, which is the systematic observation methods, another conventional method used is the perceived measures which are being conducted by the telephone interview, and it is always administered by the use of questionnaires to the clients and the population. Lastly, there is the use of archival data sets that are often layered and is being analyzed in detailed content.

The review is always being done which provide the assessment of the three methods measuring built environment. The research shows among all of the three methods used the development, and the evaluation of measurement is at early stages. It is always important to consider the psychometric properties thus the scientific validity and the reliability of the method used, and the measures critically analyzed and described, finding the gaps which are identified with the relevant to the scientists and the researcher's preference. Then the necessary recommendations are being made and recorded for the future case study and references.

The association which is between the built environment and the physical activities is always being given by the self-report data the perceptions of the individuals of the environment around them. Most studies have given out their findings on the physical activities behavior and how it related and perceived to the environment. The situation considered included the combination of the physical, the policy influences and the social factors which are being affected by the increase in healthy weight and health problems among the population. There are also some positive associations which were observed noted between the physical activities and other variables; these include the presence of the recreation activities like the availability of gym and the playing ground in the residential areas. The assessment is critical to the population this because it will always keep the community in check, and getting the people taking part in the activities which will ensure they maintain the health recommended weight.

Methods of promoting physical activities in the community and their impacts (policies)

Policies regarding the communal activities can be enhanced through the implementation of various strategies such as active involvement of the youths in transportation, parks introduction in the communities, activity-friendly streetscape encouragement, telehealth study and making use of the technology to increase or improve the level of the physical activities.

Parks in the community

Research on the U.S adolescents explores that recreational facilities enhancement enables the youths to become more active. Such policies aids in reducing the levels of the overweight as children participate in sidewalks or tracks walking on the linear park element. Also, the link between physical activity and parks and the health can be significant in various conservations such as brightening the spot policies.

Active youth's transportation

One of the trends perceived to attribute to the youth's overweight and weakness is the increased car travel to and from schools. According to observation, the number of children traveling to school in car/ vehicles has significantly increased from 20% to above 50%. Policing and recommendation on the walking and biking to and fro school will curb instances of the youths obese and overweight as they act as physical activities.

Active-friendly streetscapes

These entail enhancement of the elements which combines to form the street characters for instance roads, open spaces, and sidewalks. The policies to design the streetscape to the users ensure that people are not limited to accessing certain areas thereby improving on their experience as they walk around. In this notion, an improvement on the streetscape enhances active transport which in turn promotes the physical activity such as sidewalks.

Technology study

The community can come up with leverage on the information technologies policy among the people - for instance, an explosion of the mobile devices and computers for various activities such as personalized deliveries or harnessing IT potentials. Coming up with policies which will enable community engagement in in citizen science can serve as a way of promoting physical activity.

Issues in measuring the food environment among underserved populations

The issues and evidence concerning the relationships between the diet-health results and the environment among underserved individuals depend on their choices of food.generally, there are four characteristics of food environment that have been determined to contribute to health outcomes(Bower et al.2008). These include food availability, food accessibility, food quality, and food quality.

The food accessibility issue in measuring the food environment is basically based on a geographical factor of the food environment such as the distance and proximity to the food outlet that is the nearest, and again, it may also depend on the ratio of food outlets per the area scale and the variety of food available within a specified area. Food availability which is the actual food found within a particular region. Food affordability that relates whether the underserved populations have the capacity to pay for the kind of food that they need and quality of the food in which check on the freshness of the food that can be of reach of the population. However, the food environment is evaluated using various methods such as Nutrition Environment Measures Survey for Stores and Restaurants and Retail Environment Food Index.

References

Saelens, B. E., Sallis, J. F., Black, J. B., & Chen, D. (2003). Neighborhood-based differences in physical activity: an environment scale evaluation. American journal of public health, 93(9), 1552-1558.

Giles-Corti, B., & Donovan, R. J. (2002). The relative influence of individual, social and physical environment determinants of physical activity. Social science & medicine, 54(12), 1793-1812.

Bower, J. K., Hales, D. P., Tate, D. F., Rubin, D. A., Benjamin, S. E., & Ward, D. S. (2008). The childcare environment and children's physical activity. American journal of preventive medicine, 34(1), 23-29.