January 30, 2017
This week we’re happy to feature a guest blog from our friends over at IT’S TIME TEXAS, written by Caroline Fothergill:
“When you were setting your New Year’s resolutions, you may have stumbled upon the grim fact that only eight percent of people stick with their resolutions throughout the year.
When talking about health resolutions in particular, achieving and maintaining your health goals requires two things; your personal motivation is a big part of it, but your success is also influenced by the environments in which you live, learn, work, worship, and shop. Do the places and people you interact with on a daily basis encourage you to make healthy choices for yourself and your family? Are affordable fitness opportunities and healthy food choices accessible, and convenient? Are people around you prioritizing their health in a way that motivates you to keep moving, too?
When our schools, workplaces, and communities promote and prioritize health, we’re less likely to need to set health resolutions every year because we’re encouraged to make healthy choices every day. This is the IT’S TIME TEXAS dream for every community in the state, and this is why we created the Community Challenge! Just three weeks into the 2017 Challenge, 270 Texas communities are already competing, and participants have already lost more than 3,000 pounds!
In its fifth year, the Community Challenge is an annual competition that pits same-sized Texas communities against one another to see which can demonstrate the greatest commitment to healthy living. It’s totally free to participate, and it all happens through the Challenge website. You can participate by tracking your weight, your physical activity, snapping Healthy Selfies, organizing healthy activities for your students or coworkers, and more! Business/organization leaders and mayors can earn even more points for actions like signing pledges, completing our free workplace wellness assessment, and forming or strengthening a Mayor’s Health & Fitness Council. The Community Challenge runs through March 31st, and in early April we will declare which communities earned the most points in each of five size categories. The winning communities will receive an $1,800 grant to put toward a future health-related project and will be invited to our award ceremony at the Capitol!
When your community prioritizes health within every sector by stepping up to the Community Challenge, it will directly impact your ability to make your own health goals a reality. And by March 31st, the healthy activities you’ve been tracking to earn points will be like second nature! So if you really want to stick with your healthy resolutions this year, register for the Community Challenge and get your friends, family, and coworkers earning points alongside you. You’ll be amazed at how a little competition will keep you moving, especially if you’re in it together.”
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