Dear Fellow Citizens,

Get out your running shoes! Dust off your bicycle! Unpack your hiking gear! The Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Movement has begun.

The Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Movement is a community-wide effort to create a new culture in Louisville where physical activity and optimal nutrition are the norm. The Mayor’s Movement seeks to motivate Louisville Metro citizens to increase their level of physical activity and to adopt healthier lifestyles.

The Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Movement seeks to change norms in Louisville Metro regarding the importance and desirability of physical activity and healthy living. The Movement will be a single, coordinated, focused effort that will raise awareness of the many opportunities for physical activity already in place in our community. It will also be a catalyst for new efforts.

One such new effort is the Take Charge Challenge, a worksite wellness initiative, which has just begun among Metro government employees. The Take Charge Challenge is a voluntary ten-week program that encourages employees to increase their level of physical activity by setting goals and recording their activity each day. The Take Charge Challenge will be replicated in subsequent months among private businesses and larger nonprofit organizations.

The Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Movement will also encourage neighborhood groups to design and begin their own physical activity programs through a mini-grant program. Local groups can then design and create their own programs that align with the goals of the movement.

Some measurable goals for the Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Movement include:

• Increasing the number of people in Louisville Metro who engage in 30 minutes of moderate physical activity at least 5 days a week.

• Decreasing the percentage of overweight or obese people in Louisville Metro.

• Increasing the number of people in Louisville Metro who eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

• Develop a strong baseline of worksite wellness programs and activities in the community.

• Improve health equity by supporting
  physical activity programs in communities most adversely impacted by poor health.

True change in our community will not occur overnight. The Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Movement is just that – a Movement. It is not a flash in the pan quick fix. The Mayor’s Movement will grow at first slowly, but steadily. It will focus on the many opportunities to make our lives more active - by making use of our beautiful parks, or the area’s many hiking and biking trails, or through a whole host of existing and new venues. The Mayor’s Movement will repeatedly send the message that physical activity and healthy living are necessary and desirable, and even fun. Slowly the citizens of Louisville Metro will adopt this message, making it their own. The Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Movement will make us a more fit, healthier, and happier community.

Adewale Troutman, MD, MPH, MA
Director, Louisville Metro Health Department