Walking is a wonder drug! The American Heart Association says that walking is one of the most versatile forms of exercise, because you can do it just about anytime, anywhere.
Nearly everyone can do it – all you need is a good pair of sneakers and a safe walking area. In fact, walking just two days a week can greatly improve a person’s overall health.
Consumer Reports calls it the simplest, most popular form of exercise which is linked to lower blood pressure, reduced stress and more.
The Mayo Clinic reports that regular brisk walking can help you: maintain a healthy weight; prevent or manage various conditions, including heart disease, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes; strengthen your bones and muscles; improve your mood; and improve your balance and coordination.
There is even at least one academic study that can be found on the National Institute of Health website which indicates that walking can be more effective for preventing falls for community-dwelling older adults than balance training.
Walking with a group of people is also a great social activity that can help combat the social isolation experienced by so many older adults. Harvard Health reports that loneliness and isolation are associated with a 29% higher risk of coronary artery disease and a 32% higher risk of having a stroke. Reports also found that people who identified themselves as lonely were 59% more likely to lose the ability to perform everyday tasks and 45% more likely to die early than those who didn’t identify as lonely.
Additionally, the walkability of a community is a core factor for becoming an Age-Friendly community. An inclusive and accessible urban environment that promotes active aging and improves the quality of life for all members of society is key to an age-friendly city. Another dimension of walkability is a matter of how easily, safely and comfortably people can walk about the neighborhood. Barrier-free outdoor spaces, buildings and streets enhance the mobility and independence of older adults, persons with disabilities, and families with young children.
All totaled, walking is key to active, healthy aging, and waking clubs and annual walks have been a part of the Massachusetts Councils on Aging’s healthy aging agenda for a number of years now.
A little background: since the mid-1990’s, the Executive Office of Elder Affairs and MA Department of Public Health supported Keep Moving, a state-wide walking club program along with long-time funder, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. In 2014, DPH asked MCOA to pick up the reins.
So Who is MCOA?
Well, here’s my 60 second commercial: The Massachusetts Councils on Aging, known as MCOA, is a membership, training and advocacy organization comprised of the 350 municipally-based councils on aging in Massachusetts. COAs are the first stop on the continuum of care. We support the 1.7 million older adults, 60 and over, in Massachusetts, to lead healthy, purposeful lives. Our mission is: building strategic partnerships to educate, empower, and advocate for professionals who work with older adults. Our vision is to be the statewide collaboration that advances the quality of life for older adults.
We offer resources, both funding and partnerships, to build the capacity of local senior centers to deliver great services to older adults.
99% of the Councils on Aging in Massachusetts pay us dues.
We also receive funding from the Executive Office of Elder Affairs, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Tufts Health Plan Foundation, and Association for Community Living. Most of the money that comes in, goes right back out in grants to the councils on aging for innovative programming. The grants are awarded through a competitive bidding process. Last fiscal year, we awarded 132 grants covering programming for 172 cities.
So, in 2014, MCOA picked up the reins of Keep Moving, and, since then, we have continued to help create and support local walking clubs through the Councils on Aging, with continued funding from Blue Cross Blue Shield, and today there are 57 active walking clubs. Should you want to find a club, our walking club directory can be found at mcoaonline.com/keepmoving. There are clubs in all sized towns and cities, and they vary by number of members, as well as routes walked.
As part of Keep Moving, we also encouraged local clubs to organize an annual walking event that we called the “Go the Distance One-Mile Walking Challenge,” which was held in June each year from 2014 through 2017. About 14-16 sites scheduled walks each year.
In 2018, we decided to change things up a bit and partnered with Go4Life, an evidence-based program through the National Institute on Aging. For those of you who are not familiar with them, Go4Life promotes healthy aging through four types of exercise – Endurance, Strength, Flexibility and Balance. Go4Life recognizes that endurance exercises, like walking, improve the health of your heart, lungs, and circulatory system and help keep us healthy, improve our fitness, and help us do the tasks we need to do every day, as well as delay or prevent many diseases that are common in older adults such as diabetes, heart disease, and osteoporosis.
Go4Life also offers many vibrant marketing tools – pamphlets, postcards, bookmarks, and exercise guides and videos – all for free – to get and keep people moving.
We felt it was a perfect fit with our healthy aging agenda.
With the partnership with Go4Life, it no longer made sense to hold the walks in June. September is Go4Life Month, when Go4Life encourages partner activities. It is also Intergenerational Month, National Senior Center Month, and, as you well know, Falls Prevention Awareness Month.
Walking is one size fits all – it can be intergenerational, it helps with balance and endurance, both of which help to prevent falls, and we can offer it through our member senior centers.
Thus, the idea of the Go4Life Family Fun Walks was born.
With our partnership with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, we were able to offer a small grant of $300 per site this year to towns holding walks to use for transportation, t-shirts, water, fruit, and whatever other small items were needed for their walks. Southampton actually used a portion of their grant to purchase a FitBit to raffle! Which, by the way, was won by a lady who was in town all the way from California and came out with her family to walk.
All totaled, we were able to award grants to 38 towns, which you see listed here.
Go4Life was thrilled with our level of participation. They were so impressed, they included us as a partner of the month in an interview on a national podcast called the Not Old–Better show, which can be found at notold-better.com or on SoundCloud or Apple podcasts. They also have now invited me to participate in helping them start a walking club program.
In the end, we had 23 of the walks scheduled in September, with 10 in October due to rain dates and logistical feasibility. Now, you’re probably saying, wait, that’s not 38! We had a few towns who were not able to get the logistics together, and so unfortunately dropped out of the program.
However, all together so far, we’ve had nearly 600 walkers of all ages and abilities. The walks have been held indoors, outdoors, on high school tracks, in school gyms, at nature preserves, and at city parks. And the walkers have been older adults, even those with canes and walkers, and their children, grandchildren, and even a couple of great-grandchildren. And we still have a few more walks to go!
I tried to attend as many of the walks as I could, and I met some truly wonderful people.
This lady in the background in purple is Marion. She had a fall in January and doesn’t feel safe now walking with her cane, so she uses a walker. She has three children, four grandchildren, and five great grandchildren. She walks with the group in Lee twice a week and has built her endurance back up to six times around the gym – and she isn’t stopping there!
And this is me bringing up the rear in the Southampton walk. I fell behind because I wanted to talk to the lady behind me in the green shirt. Her name is Vicki. She is 96 years old and walks this one-mile route twice a week with the Southampton walking club. She brought her grandson and granddaughter-in-law and their two young sons who were full of energy and who ran off and left her that day.
Also walking with us is Liz who is in for a knee replacement, but keeps up her walking to keep the one she has limber and in decent working shape, even though it gives her some pain.
Both ladies completed the one mile walk with me.
And then there’s me. Going to these walks have made me more aware of my need for physical activity and I’m now losing weight and have gotten my A1C down two points!
I highlight these ladies because it just goes to show that anyone can join a walking club and can get up and out and as Nike would say – just do it – even if you’re 96, even if you’ve had a fall, even if you’re me!