When was the last time you went to a city council meeting? If recreation is up for debate, you might want to attend. Fitness parks can foster social engagement and well-being. They play integral roles in creating more sustainable, healthy communities, but they need your support to succeed.
Helping these efforts also boosts your property value. The most desirable neighborhoods have ample recreational amenities. People enjoy the ability to ride their bikes to the market without fear of cars, let their kids run, skip and jump freely and have a place to gather, exercise, share stories and host potlucks. Here’s how fitness parks foster social engagement, improve well-being and build stronger communities.
Table of Contents
1. Fitness Parks Promote Healthy Lifestyles
“Go for a walk outside” sounds like good advice. However, the reality often means dodging traffic and seeing nothing but littered sidewalks and advertisements. Is it any wonder people prefer to stay indoors? In the rush to take advantage of technology, city leaders built communities around cars, but ignoring the human element has led to unwanted outcomes, like growing obesity and chronic disease rates.
Fitness parks promote healthy lifestyles in multiple ways, supporting physical, mental and emotional well-being. Look at some of the benefits residents can reap without ever joining a gym:
- Reduced stress: Simply being outside lowers stress hormone levels. When combined with gentle movement, the endorphins give an added mood boost. Combating stress may be the quickest way to improve overall health, as too much of it worsens the symptoms of nearly every condition.
- Increased Vitamin D levels: This important immunity-boosting nutrient is crucial as cold and flu season approaches. It revs your body up to fight disease. In actuality, it’s a hormone people make naturally with sun exposure.
Improved strength, balance and energy: Healthy residents are less likely to fall ill, easing the strain on health care systems and preventing sick days. - Better mental health: Mental health is a public health issue, as maladaptive behaviors hurt everyone. Going outdoors improves the symptoms of several disorders, including anxiety and depression.
2. Fitness Parks Make Communities More Walkable and Friendly
Dog walkers have long known that exercising their furry friends is one of the best ways to meet their neighbors. You meet on neutral territory when enjoying an activity you love, fostering positive relationships. Even non-dog owners benefit, as regular exercisers often get to know the pup patrol along their morning jogging routes.
People desire communities with high walkability scores for several reasons, including friendliness. Furthermore, such neighborhoods are essential to combating climate change, as a considerable percentage of daily emissions stem from commuting. Fitness parks provide a healthy way to get from point A to point B without the fear of getting hit by a car — integrating such urban pathways into cityscapes is urgent for human and planetary well-being.
3. Fitness Parks Unite People Across Generations
Is there anything more heartwarming than watching generations unite over a friendly chess match at the park? Some grandmasters can draw quite the audience, and what’s magic is the two parties don’t have to be related by blood, simply the love of the game.
Fitness parks offer valuable opportunities for people from different generations to intermingle. Many activities, such as yoga, are suitable for people of all ages. 5-year-olds could spread out their mats next to their parents and the octogenarian next door.
Humans have historically learned from one another, with the older generation passing down valuable lessons to the next. Education need not cost a bundle when it comes from other people, and creating public spaces where people of various ages can mix and mingle continues the time-honored tradition of passing down crucial life lessons and a healthy dose of folk wisdom.
4. Fitness Parks Create Cleaner Human Habitats
Imagine you had two hamsters. One lives in a neat, tidy cage with fresh water and clean bedding, the other in filthy conditions. Which one do you think will be healthier?
Climate change has already begun taking a toll on public health, leading to countless premature deaths yearly. If every person in America committed to planting 150-200 trees annually, it could offset the emissions created.
While it may not be feasible for everyone to plant that many trees, fitness parks help fill the green gap. Rows of oaks or juniper provide needed shade for exercisers amid rising temperatures. They also act like scrub brushes, removing carbon from the air and keeping human habitats cleaner for everyone’s use.
5. Fitness Parks Encourage Sustainable Community Growth
Green places need maintenance, especially within city centers where population density amplifies problems like wildfires. They require humans to maintain the trees and other foliage, manage wildlife issues and create recreational programs that engage the community.
That need equates to job creation. As humans shift to an economy designed around sustainability instead of endless growth, they will need more people to provide the services that keep these amenities clean and green. From arborists to maintain trees to instructors to guide various course offerings, fitness parks employ multiple individuals in fulfilling professions that contribute directly to the community they serve.
How Fitness Parks Foster Social Engagement and Well-Being
Advocating for more fitness parks in your local community is a fabulous way to use your voice to speak up for improved human and planetary health. People need public spaces where they can gather and engage in healthy recreation without having to pay for the privilege.
Fitness parks foster social engagement and well-being in several ways. They’re a vital part of building communities centered around people.
