In this economically difficult time, health care concerns are emerging as a priority at every level of our society. How can we fix our ever costlier health care system? How can we absorb the increasing pressure as the newly unemployed join the ranks of the uninsured? And what about increasing demands as baby boomers age, perhaps with reduced retirement funds?

As state and local government officials grapple with these and other issues, they are scouring their budgets for potential cutbacks. In such a climate, public parks and recreation facilities can be a tempting target. But research indicates links between good health and the availability of parks. It could be that keeping our parks flourishing can actually help reduce some of our health care problems, if we make good use of them. And as families, too, face increasing financial pressures, there’s never been a better time to do just that.

How do parks contribute to better public health? Recent research shows a likely link between childhood obesity and a lack of access to parks and open spaces. Researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health studied children who live in high-population-density regions. They found that children without convenient access to parks and open spaces had a 13 percent higher risk for obesity.

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The researchers urge caution in drawing a straight line from cause to effect, but they do speculate that parks and open spaces with trees and vegetation encourage more active play among youngsters.

We do know that spending more time in active play reduces a child’s body mass index (BMI). That’s the ratio of weight to height that the National Institutes of Health uses to determine if we are under weight, over weight or obese. (The National Institutes of Health has a calculator on its website you can use to determine your own family members’ BMI. It’s at www.

nhlbisupport.com/bmi/)

We found similar, if less dramatic, reductions in BMI in a Tucson study conducted over the past three years and funded by a Carol M. White Physical Education Program grant. The YMCA of Southern Arizona partnered with the University of Arizona and Sunnyside Unified School District to study how providing more physical activity during the school day might reduce risk for obesity in elementary school children. The results were encouraging, if not definitive, and our grant has been renewed to expand the research to include middle school children for the next three years.

There may be no more important responsibility for a community than raising healthy children, but other research shows a dramatic potential benefit to our aging population, as well.

A 2002 study of Tokyo residents over age 70 found greater longevity and improved outlooks among those who had access to green, public spaces. Researchers believe these results also point to increased activity as the source of the benefits. Their environments encouraged these participants to do more walking. The result: Participants who lived near walk-able, open spaces were shown to live as much as five years longer than those who didn’t.

As everyone scrambles to make ends meet, it’s good to know that something as simple as a walk in the park can not only make us physically healthier but also improve our outlook. If we start now and keep it up, the accumulation of all our walks in the park could mitigate the urgency, and expense, of our health care policy, as well.

In these times, perhaps the best thing about walking — or playing — in the park isn’t even the fact that it’s healthy for everyone in the family, from toddlers to grandparents. Perhaps the best thing is that it’s something the whole family can enjoy together, and it doesn’t cost a thing.

Contact Dane Woll, president and CEO of the YMCA of Southern Arizona, at  DaneW@tucsonymca.org. His Getting Fit column appears quarterly and is next scheduled to be in the June 29 issue of Inside Tucson Business.