Let's go to the park today! This familiar phrase is heard routinely throughout the year in many U.S. households. Access to parks, trails, open spaces, and recreational facilities not only provides increased opportunities for children and adults to play and be physically active, but these venues also influence other behaviors. As the health and wellbeing of our children are impacted by the daily environment in which they live, learn, and play, the use of parks and other recreation spaces as a healthful venue is important to consider in a comprehensive view of childhood and family obesity prevention. This article briefly summarizes some of the obesity-related benefits of parks across the local, state, and national park systems and highlights specific initiatives as examples of the commitment by park agencies to benefit the public's health and play a role in obesity and chronic disease prevention.

The IUCN World Parks Congress is a once in a decade event that has traditionally been a major forum for advancing global protected area policy and practice. The Congress this November in Sydney Australia will be run along eight streams; addressing biodiversity, climate change, health, ecosystem services, development, governance, indigenous peoples issues and youth; cross-cutting themes address marine issues, capacity building, World Heritage and a New Social Compact. In the following extended editorial, the organisers of the various streams lay out their aims and hopes for the 2014 Congress.

Background:We synthesized the results of 7 National Park Service pilot interventions designed to increase awareness of the health benefits from participation in recreation at national parks and to increase physical activity by park visitors.Methods:A content analysis was conducted of the final evaluation reports of the 7 participating parks. Pooled data were also analyzed from a standardized trail-intercept survey administered in 3 parks.Results:The theme of new and diverse partnerships was the most common benefit reported across the 7 sites. The 2 parks that focused on youth showed evidence of an increase in awareness of the benefits of physical activity. Many of the other sites found high levels of awareness at baseline (approaching 90%), suggesting little room for improvement. Five of the 7 projects showed evidence of an increase in physical activity that was associated with the intervention activities. Multivariate analyses suggested that the media exposure contributed to a small but significant increase in awareness of the importance of physical activity (6%) and number of active visits (7%).Conclusions:Enhancements and replication of these programs represents a promising opportunity for improving partnerships between public health and recreation to increase physical activity.

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