ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal®: July – August 2023 | How Health and Fitness Professionals Can Further Advance the Nation’s Health by Working across the Ecological Model
All health and fitness professionals help people to move more. This can happen in several ways, through:
- Individual behavior change and interpersonal relationships built during classes or group-based programming (Programs);
- Organizational and community settings such as private gyms or health clubs, community fitness centers, or hospital wellness or rehabilitation centers (Places); and
- Influencing PSE interventions (Policy) to help more people be more active by making the whole community more walkable and bikeable
However, from a community perspective, there is an inherent gap between our current level of success and the opportunity to help many more people improve their health and well-being by increasing physical activity. The gap varies by community, but health and fitness professionals can help narrow and even bridge this gap by building networks, forming partnerships, and engaging in collaborations working across multiple levels of the ecological model, connecting programs, places, and policy interventions to achieve greater increases in physical activity among more people in the population to “Further Advance the Nation’s Health.”
