Start: facilitate the cause
In 2006, 65 percent of American adults were overweight or obese and physical inactivity was acknowledged as one of the leading risk factors for heart disease and stroke. With research showing that even moderate amounts of increased activity in any form could have an enormous impact on the quality and length of life, the American Heart Association (AHA) saw an opportunity to prioritize "adult inactivity" as an issue to combat.
This meant creating awareness, raising funds and engaging people in healthy behaviors. The result was Start!, a campaign designed to reach adults focusing on simple lifestyle changes and providing innovative tools and resources to implement these changes. Start! promotes walking – the activity with the lowest dropout rate – as the gateway activity to living longer, stronger, healthier lives. The premise is simple and based on solid scientific evidence that for every one hour of regular exercise, individuals can gain two hours of life expectancy. And a big part of what was communicated happened online.
The site offers users a basic online fitness and nutrition program, allowing them to track daily physical activity such as walking or biking and track daily caloric intake. Users can also receive daily tips, weekly articles and recipes. More than 43,000 individuals registered for Start! and to date, the group has walked nearly 6 million minutes and more than 350,000 miles.
To help expand the reach, the AHA enlisted the online support of some of their sponsors as well. Healthy Choice, for example, launched the Start! Making Healthy Choices, which includes videos, recipes and other tools to make it easy for users to commit to a healthy diet and start making the changes to their life.