Childhood obesity has become a public health concern in recent years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that approximately 12.5 million children and adolescents are obese. This number accounts for approximately 17% of children and adolescents between the ages of 2 and 19 in the United States. Worse, it estimates that the obesity rate among children and adolescents has tripled since 1980.

Many factors likely play a role in the trend for increasing childhood obesity in the United States. These factors include the consumption of fast food and soft drinks, lack of physical activity, and increased time spent watching television or playing video games.

While preaching better nutrition and physical activity to kids is essential, that message will likely prove far more effective if parents serve as better examples of good health.

What can parents do to lead healthy lifestyles and demonstrate those lifestyle behaviors to their children?

Teach better nutrition

Not only should kids eat healthier foods and drink healthier beverages, they should also learn to make better nutritional choices themselves. Getting rid of junk food and soft drinks can be good start for a healthier family, but children should learn how to choose healthier foods and beverages.

One idea that parents can consider for instilling proper nutrition involves taking the kids to the grocery store. Walk up and down the aisles and teach them why certain foods are more nutritious than others. Then allow them to select some of the foods and drinks themselves, perhaps for a family meal. If they can bring their own lunches to school, allow them to choose foods for their daily lunches.

By teaching nutrition at an early age, it's more likely these youth will make healthier food choices as they get older and more independent.

Limit screen time

The amount of time that kids spend staring at a screen is staggering. When parents consider how much time their children perform these activities, they need to consider how often their kids spend time watching TV, using computers, playing video games, watching movies, or looking at cell phones.

Studies show that kids between the ages of 8 and 18 watch television for an average of 4.5 hours per day. When other forms of screen time are included, this average jumps to 7.5 hours per day.

This screen time can increase the chances that a child becomes obese. Kids are likely to snack, especially on junk food, while watching TV. Also, these young kids will likely see hundreds of advertisements for unhealthy foods and beverages during the television programs. More importantly, some of that 7.5 hours could be spent engaging in regular physical activity.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents limit their children's total media consumption to no more than one to two hours per day. While this guideline is critical for children and adolescents to follow, parents should use it as well. It is hard to preach limits on screen time if the parents come home and watch TV too.

Engage the family in physical activity

The 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommends that children and adolescents perform at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day. Parents can play a large role in helping their kids achieve these daily recommendations by engaging them in fun activities involving physical exertion. Jogging, walking, taking bike rides, hiking, and many other activities can be both fun and physically beneficial. To keep the kids enthusiastic about exercise, allowing them to bring their friends or encourage them to pick the activities.

If children see their parents exercising regularly, they are also more likely to accept it as a normal part of their own lives. They might look forward to exercising rather than perceiving it as some sort of punishment.

If parents commit to becoming healthier themselves - making better nutrition choices and performing regular physical activity - their children are much more liekly to emulate these behaviors.

What are you doing to engage your family in fitness?

As a nation, we know that our own choices and behaviors - including physical inactivity - have contributed to rising rates of chronic disease and obesity. It seems easy enough to encourage individuals and families to engage in more physical activity. But the reality is that in many communities across the nation, making healthy choices such as getting active is not only difficult; sometimes it's not even option.

"It's not that hard," we might say. "Just go out and take a walk around your neighborhood." But what if that neighborhood doesn't have sidewalks, and is cut off from other parts of the community? What if residents in that neighborhood feel unsafe when walking around because of poor lighting or other issues? What if children can't play because of lack of space?

Confronting our nation's health crisis requires that we support individuals and communtiies in making better choices, and that we work together to address the underlying conditions and other factors - stress, poverty, social isolation, and neighborhood safety - that contribute to declining health and well-being. This is especially important for those living in communities with limited access to the tools and resources needed to attain and maintain a healthier lifestyle.

We need to make the healthy choice the easy choice by ensuring that our communities have adequate opportunities for children, families and adults to engage in healthy behaviors in all of the places where they live, work, learn, and play.

The Y, along with many other national and local organizations, is part of a growing "healthier communities" movement around the nation, bringing together community leaders and advocates to transform environments and to ensure that healthy opportunities are available to all - no matter where they live.

These collaborative efforts are making getting fit by active transportation easier by creating streets that are safe for all users whether they walk, bike or drive. They are making it easier for kids to walk to school by providing walking school buses and designated walk-to-school days. They are building or repairing parks or playgrounds, thereby providing opportunities for kids and families to play together. They are connecting communtiies by building walking and bike paths. They are ensuring that town and city plans address community design to ensure they support physical activity - and so much more.

A healthier community is a stronger community, leading not only to improved chronic disease and obesity rates, but often an improved economy. Imagine a neighborhood where businesses that struggled suddenly thrive after new street lighting makes it possible to shop at night. Imagine children playing in a new park. Imagine a new bustling town businesses district that is connected to residential neighborhoods through pedestrian and bike trails.

The possibilities are limitless, but it will take all parts of a community working together to achieve the goal of healthy communities where opportunities for physical activity benefit everyone.

What kind of barriers to physical activity might communities face? What are some things that communities can do together to overcome those barriers? Who might need to work together to help support physical activity in these communities? What ares ome of the benefits, outside of improved physical health, that healthier communities can lead to?

This blog post has been contributed by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

To health professionals, planners and transportation experts, active transportation (i.e. walking and biking as an alternative to car travel) is a no-brainer. Communities that facilitate non-motorized modes as safe and convenient options for getting from A to B simply function better. They have less pollution, their population is healthier, downtown business areas are more vibrant, and real estate values are stronger as their neighborhoods reflect what more Americans are demanding of their environments these days - diversity of transportation choices.

Not only that, but these facilities make economic sense too. A mile of paved trail can cost the same as just a few yards of urban four-lane road, not to mention the associated savings of non-motorized transportation stemming from reduced oil consumption and spending on reactive health care. This is why building environments that encourage walking and bicycling is a key part of the National Physical Activity Plan, and a major component of its strategies.

Unfortunately, despite the overwhelming support of the public health community, local planners and officials, businesspeople and residents, there are still some political and financial barriers to building these kinds of environments. For example, the Transportation Enhancements (TE) program was recently an agenda item during government budget planning. TE is the nation's largest funding source for trails, walking and bicycling. Working with numerous partners, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) led an effort to ensure our elected leaders knew how important walking and biking options were to their constituents. In the end, vital active transportation programs like TE were preserved intact.

RTC knows it is important to secure adequate funding for active transportation into the future. So, what we know to be a public health issue - the effort to increase physical activity in our everyday lives - is also an effort of political will.

In an era of fiscal constraint, presenting economic benefits could have the most weight when discussing the issue with policymakers. With walking and biking, it is an easy argument to make.

Biking and walking infrastructure account for less than two percent of the entire federal surface transportation budget, yet account for 12 percent of all trips taken in America. And trail construction projects have been shown to create more jobs, and more local jobs, for every $1 spent, than road construction. This is both smart financial investment and good health policy.

The voice of the health community, which understands so clearly that investing in walking and biking could translate into a significant reduction in our health care expenditure, adds yet another dimension to a case that is already hard to dismiss.

The great work being done through the National Physical Activity Plan will only be realized as health gains if we are able to maintain funding and support for facilities that encourage biking, walking, and active ways of getting around.

How will you encourage the funding of facilities that promote active transportation?

Pictured: Community trails like the Hudson River Greenway (top image) in New York and the Ojai Valley Trail in California are crucial in providing transportation options for residents that incorporate health and fitness into their daily lives.

Want to know more about how RTC is working to build a better landscape for walking and biking? Contact Kartik Sribarra at kartik@railstotrails.org.