Walking. It’s safe, simple, doesn’t require practice or special equipment, and it’s good for you, too.
Staff members at the UI Wellness Center hope a new program will help faculty and staff members and students take advantage of the campus’s many pathways and sidewalks and walk their way to better health.
“We want to help employees and students on campus to be more active and focus more on lifestyle activity,” said Michele Guerra, the director of the Wellness Center, which is part of Campus Recreation.
“We already have a lot of resources for structured exercise (through Campus Recreation programs) but we want to help people move more in daily life.”
Getting people on campus to increase their activity without making big lifestyle changes is part of the center’s strategic plan.
Guerra said the decision was made to start with walking not only because it’s one of the most popular forms of exercise, but also because so many people would be willing to try it.
“It’s something that most people could do easily,” she said. “You don’t need special equipment. You just need some good shoes and socks and maybe some sunscreen and a hat.”
The center hopes to have a study of the campus’s “walkability” completed by fall. The campus was divided into 12 quadrants. Volunteers are being sought to evaluate each area to determine the best walking routes on campus. The volunteers should live, work or study in the quadrant they evaluate.
Volunteers will be trained to use a tool, originally developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that evaluates nine areas to determine the ease with which pedestrians can walk in the quadrant. The CDC tool has been enhanced with more observational questions that are specific to a college campus setting.
Criteria to be rated: suitable walking surfaces; hazards, such as broken concrete; pedestrian conflicts (such as motor-vehicle traffic); foot-traffic congestion; the presence and visibility of crosswalks; maintenance of walkways, including possible overgrown foliage or standing water; the width of the path; the space separating roadways and walkways; accessibility; aesthetics (which ranks the surroundings as well as things such as the amount of shade on a path).
Information on hazardous areas would be shared with Facilities and Services, Public Safety, or other offices that could fix the problems, Guerra said.
Guerra said volunteers will not evaluate every street, path and trail in each quadrant, but will focus on walkways near the most populated areas.
Guerra would like to see the information from the audit eventually be used to create Web-based tools that can guide people who want to walk. For example, this might include the best paths for a quiet walk alone or a quick walk at lunchtime. She also would like to promote themed walking activities during TV Turnoff Week and Sustainability Week this fall.
More detail on walking programs will be available this fall. Guerra said she hopes the audit will be completed by the beginning of the fall semester. She hopes the walking program will not only get people moving, but will encourage them to appreciate the campus.
A lot of people simply are unaware of all the nice areas to walk, she said, “unless they happen to be right next to them.”
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