Strategies

Build, strengthen, and maintain social networks that provide supportive relationships for behavior change through walking groups or other community-based interventions

Provide patients with prescriptions for exercise plans, often accompanied by progress checks at office visits, counseling, activity logs, and exercise testing

Modify the school lunch food environment or school lunch schedules by increasing the convenience of healthy foods, providing healthy options, or ensuring students have enough time to eat

Teach behavioral skills that can help individuals incorporate physical activity into their daily routines

Promote walking and biking to school through education, incentives, and environmental changes; often called SRTS

Support programs to provide students with a nutritious breakfast in the cafeteria, from grab and go carts in hallways, or in classrooms

Establish designated areas where students can garden with guidance, often with nutrition and food preparation lessons and opportunities for taste tasting and hands-on learning

Expand or enhance school-based physical education (PE) by lengthening existing classes, increasing physical activity during class, adding new PE classes, etc.

Encourage children to spend time away from TV and other stationary screen media, often as part of a multi-faceted effort to increase physical activity and improve nutrition

Arrange active transportation with a fixed route, designated stops, and pick up times when children can walk to school with adult chaperones