ADOPT-A-WALK
healthier together one loop at a time
Meet Friends and Get to Know Your Neighborhood
When the 1st Adopt-A-Walk opened in Santa Monica on June 29, 2019, there were three ladies who met and became friends. They are still friends to this day. They live in the community of the walk loop. They say that during COVID this walk loop saved them because they would meet and walk the loop 3 times a week with masks. If it hadn’t been for this Adopt-A-Walk loop, they would have stayed at home in their PJs all day feeling lonely and isolated. Today, they do more than walking together. They engage in other social events. They enhance and support each other’s life!
This success story is what Adopt-A-Walk is all about!Â
What Adopt-A-Walk can add to your community:Â
- A natural meeting point for people wanting to go for a walk.Â
- An easy healthy way to meet new friends and get to know your neighborhood.
- Adding walking loops can lead more adults to become active.
- A simple solution to increase physical activity and decrease chronic diseases.
- Addressing all aspects of health - physical, social, emotional, mental, spiritual, and environmental!
We are passionate about creating and promoting walking friendly communities to improve the health of the people in the community in a fun and easy way. We work with city planners to create a safe 1-mile permanently marked loop with an informational start/finish sign, distance markers, inspirational quotes, and natural places to stop to rest.Â
Just 1-mile?
Yes, this is for the 80% of the adult American population who do not get enough recommended exercise. You may feel overwhelmed by the suggested 10,000 steps a day. You may end up not doing anything at all. Instead, we encourage you to come to our walks and special events to get started on living a healthier lifestyle. Maybe 1 mile feels like a doable goal? Then you’ve come to the right place!
How did Adopt-A-Walk Start?
Growing up in Sweden, Malin Svensson, the founder of Adopt-A-Walk, lead a natural active lifestyle by walking and biking to everything locally. She never owned a car until she moved to Los Angeles…..
The fitness industry can’t seem to reach the people who need to move their bodies the most. The number of gyms appears to grow as fast as the obesity crisis is growing. What is wrong with this picture? We believe we are not making an active lifestyle easily accessible within most of our communities. Adopt-A-Walk was born to be the solution – to create and promote walking friendly communities by adding permanently marked 1-mile walking loops that are easily accessible.
The number of gyms appears to grow as fast as the obesity crisis is growing
Sedentary Lifestyly = "the Sitting Disease"
Physical inactivity (sedentary lifestyle) has many detrimental effects on our health. Adding biking lanes and walking paths could lead more adults to become active.
- Physical inactivity is linked to more than 5 million deaths worldwide per year, more than those caused by smoking.
- Physical inactivity can lead to obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
- 80 percent of adult Americans do not get the recommended amounts of exercise each week.
- Ages 65 and older are least likely to engage in physical activity.
— Study from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) May 2013
