Health
How does the elevation affect people’s health?
Downtown Denver is about 5,280 feet above sea level. Because of this, visitors should anticipate mild altitude sickness. This includes dehydration, sleep disturbances, headaches, and loss of appetite. Decreased sports performance may also occur. This especially affects visiting professional sports teams. To lessen the impact, stay away from alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine.
The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that living at higher altitudes can prevent heart disease. Colorado has the nation’s lowest death rate from heart disease. They also have low rates for lung and colon cancer. In lower oxygen environments, the amount of blood vessels that form in the heart increase. This means that people in Colorado are more at rick for lung disease. Also, due to the thin air, breathing is difficult.
Being closer to the sun has some drawbacks. The risk of skin cancer is higher because ultraviolet intensity is greater at higher elevations. There are some cancers that depend on oxygen to grow. Those include bladder, kidney, and stomach cancers. But, breast cancer and prostate cancer cells grow better when there is less oxygen in the environment.
What types of exercise opportunities are available in downtown Denver?
Denver is the nation's sixth fittest city as of 2015. Downtown Denver has over 150 acres of parks and open spaces. It also has 18.5 miles of bike trails. If you do not own a bicycle, you can rent one from the many stations placed around the city.
There are also many opportunities inside to exercise as well. The YMCA has a gym, basketball courts, tracks, and fitness equipment. They also offer classes like yoga and pilates.
LiveWell Colorado has made a campaign called HEAL (Healthy Eating Active Living). Julie George is the campaign director. The goal is to provide training and assistance to help officials adopt policies to improve the communities access to healthy food and physical activity.
How does the location of downtown Denver affect people’s diets?
Below is my interview with Julie George:
Q: Do you think the geographic location of downtown Denver directly affects peoples diets?
A: Diets are impacted by the food that is available within a short geographic distance. There are ample restaurants and fast food establishments in downtown Denver but to my knowledge there are no grocery stores or food markets in downtown proper. This does impact diets and generally means a lower consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Q: Compared to other major cities, do you think downtown Denver has an overall healthy population?
A: Yes, Colorado is still the leanest state in the nation and Denver has similar obesity and chronic disease rates as the state but overall, Colorado and Denver is becoming less healthy. Colorado’s current adult obesity rate of 21% would have made us the “fattest” state in the nation in 1995. That increase is a very scary trend for Colorado and the nation.
Q: How do you convince officials to adapt policies to improve the community’s access to healthy food and physical activity?
A: Most local officials want to have a healthy community. Educating them about the tie between access to healthy living and healthy residents is positively received. The work the HEAL Cities & Towns Campaign helps city and town leaders do is work they already do, we just help them understand the ways they can do this work to increase access to healthy living. For example, cities have a road maintenance schedule where road repairs and upgrades are done on a rotating basis. We might work with a city to update the details of this maintenance schedule so that when certain streets are being repaved and the lines restriped, there is a plan to stripe for bike lanes.
Q: Do communities generally respond well when new policies are implemented?
A: This all depends. If the city has done their job right and has asked for public input and listened to the needs and wants of residents, then yes, implementing new plans is generally received well. However if the city implements a plan without community input, the response may not be as positive, depending on the situation. And regardless of whether community input was done well, there will always be detractors.
Q: Would you say that Denver’s status as a fit city has improved over the last decade?
A: Obesity rates continue to climb throughout Colorado, especially for kids. Wealthier people tend to be healthier than those of lower socioeconomic status, this has not changed over the past decade.
Q: When the access to opportunities for physical activity improves, do you think most people take advantage of that?
A: If the physical activity is something they relate to and fits their personal, social and cultural needs, then yes.
Q: Do you believe that LiveWell Colorado does a good job of educating people of all ages about nutrition and the importance of healthy eating?
A: LiveWell Colorado does not employ a nutrition staff and our work is not focused on educating and working with individuals, rather we are focused on policy and systems change work, in other words, trying to create environments where the healthy choice is the easy choice. We rely on partners and other organizations to focus on individual behavior change and education.
Downtown Denver is about 5,280 feet above sea level. Because of this, visitors should anticipate mild altitude sickness. This includes dehydration, sleep disturbances, headaches, and loss of appetite. Decreased sports performance may also occur. This especially affects visiting professional sports teams. To lessen the impact, stay away from alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine.
The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that living at higher altitudes can prevent heart disease. Colorado has the nation’s lowest death rate from heart disease. They also have low rates for lung and colon cancer. In lower oxygen environments, the amount of blood vessels that form in the heart increase. This means that people in Colorado are more at rick for lung disease. Also, due to the thin air, breathing is difficult.
Being closer to the sun has some drawbacks. The risk of skin cancer is higher because ultraviolet intensity is greater at higher elevations. There are some cancers that depend on oxygen to grow. Those include bladder, kidney, and stomach cancers. But, breast cancer and prostate cancer cells grow better when there is less oxygen in the environment.
What types of exercise opportunities are available in downtown Denver?
Denver is the nation's sixth fittest city as of 2015. Downtown Denver has over 150 acres of parks and open spaces. It also has 18.5 miles of bike trails. If you do not own a bicycle, you can rent one from the many stations placed around the city.
There are also many opportunities inside to exercise as well. The YMCA has a gym, basketball courts, tracks, and fitness equipment. They also offer classes like yoga and pilates.
LiveWell Colorado has made a campaign called HEAL (Healthy Eating Active Living). Julie George is the campaign director. The goal is to provide training and assistance to help officials adopt policies to improve the communities access to healthy food and physical activity.
How does the location of downtown Denver affect people’s diets?
Below is my interview with Julie George:
Q: Do you think the geographic location of downtown Denver directly affects peoples diets?
A: Diets are impacted by the food that is available within a short geographic distance. There are ample restaurants and fast food establishments in downtown Denver but to my knowledge there are no grocery stores or food markets in downtown proper. This does impact diets and generally means a lower consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Q: Compared to other major cities, do you think downtown Denver has an overall healthy population?
A: Yes, Colorado is still the leanest state in the nation and Denver has similar obesity and chronic disease rates as the state but overall, Colorado and Denver is becoming less healthy. Colorado’s current adult obesity rate of 21% would have made us the “fattest” state in the nation in 1995. That increase is a very scary trend for Colorado and the nation.
Q: How do you convince officials to adapt policies to improve the community’s access to healthy food and physical activity?
A: Most local officials want to have a healthy community. Educating them about the tie between access to healthy living and healthy residents is positively received. The work the HEAL Cities & Towns Campaign helps city and town leaders do is work they already do, we just help them understand the ways they can do this work to increase access to healthy living. For example, cities have a road maintenance schedule where road repairs and upgrades are done on a rotating basis. We might work with a city to update the details of this maintenance schedule so that when certain streets are being repaved and the lines restriped, there is a plan to stripe for bike lanes.
Q: Do communities generally respond well when new policies are implemented?
A: This all depends. If the city has done their job right and has asked for public input and listened to the needs and wants of residents, then yes, implementing new plans is generally received well. However if the city implements a plan without community input, the response may not be as positive, depending on the situation. And regardless of whether community input was done well, there will always be detractors.
Q: Would you say that Denver’s status as a fit city has improved over the last decade?
A: Obesity rates continue to climb throughout Colorado, especially for kids. Wealthier people tend to be healthier than those of lower socioeconomic status, this has not changed over the past decade.
Q: When the access to opportunities for physical activity improves, do you think most people take advantage of that?
A: If the physical activity is something they relate to and fits their personal, social and cultural needs, then yes.
Q: Do you believe that LiveWell Colorado does a good job of educating people of all ages about nutrition and the importance of healthy eating?
A: LiveWell Colorado does not employ a nutrition staff and our work is not focused on educating and working with individuals, rather we are focused on policy and systems change work, in other words, trying to create environments where the healthy choice is the easy choice. We rely on partners and other organizations to focus on individual behavior change and education.