What You Can Do

There's more to good health than just eating your vegetables!  But staying healthy or changing habits to be more healthy isn't hard to do.  Below are tips for eating healthy foods and staying active.

Individuals

• Shop for fresh, local produce at your local farmer's market.

• Take a "Cooking for Life" class to learn how you can prepare easy, affordable and healthy meals.

• Check out the Farm to Family Program if you are enrolled in the VT Department of Health's WIC Program.

• Visit or donate at your local food shelf.

• Contact the Vermont Fuel and Food Partnership for assistance.

• Eat at restaurants who partner with local farmers through the Vermont Fresh Network.

• Contact your community's recreation department to find opportunities for both adults and kids.

• Join the Greater Burlington YMCA or your local health club to stay active.

• Encourage your kids to walk or bike to school by participating in the Safe Routes to School program.

• Walk or bike on trails around the community.  Local Motion's Trail Finder can help you find trails.  You can even find and share comments about a trail!

• Take the Get Moving! Challenge and track your physical activity online.

• Attend a Healthier Living Workshop if you have a chronic health condition. 

Business & Organizations

• Host a wellness workshop. The Greater Burlington YMCA offers a variety of workshops to help improve employee health, wellness and productivity.

• Explore how workplace wellness can improve productivity and workplace health.  The Vermont Department of Health has a variety of free resources to help.

• Establish an Employee Assistance Plan to respond to problems in an employee’s life that may affect job performance.

• Encourage healthy eating in your workplace by offering healthy choices at meetings and in vending machine.  "Healthy Eating Guidelines for Worksites" has ideas on how you can do this.

• Offer health club membership benefits.

• Provide fitness breaks to improve productivity.

• Designate a space in your workplace for fitness activities.

Communities

• Designate areas for community gardens.  The Burlington Area Community Gardens website has a map of ciurrent sites and resources tohelp you get started.

• Participate in, or start, a Farm to School initiative in your community.  VT FEED has all the resources you need to get fresh, local food in your school.

• Encourage protection of natural areas for public use and development that includes recreation paths and sidewalks;

• Participate in the 2010 Campaign for Active Transportation, which seeks to to double the federal investment in active transportation in the next transportation reauthorization.

• Support the Safe Routes to School program if your community is participating.

• Review the Chittenden County Metropolitan Planning Organization's Regional Bicycle-Pedestrian Plan Update.