Americans have long pursued activities aimed at improving their personal health or improving the planet's health.
Recently, though, some with one aspiration or the other are seeing a link - when they bike to work, buy local and organic foods or spruce up a park, as Julie Tasillo did one recent Saturday in South Baltimore.
"We're helping our own environment," said Tasillo, of Locust Point, as she cleaned, mulched and planted greens alongside other volunteers at Riverside Park. "There are definitely personal benefits, also. I'm definitely getting a workout."
Some health and environmental advocates say they are starting to see more purposeful planning of workouts, chores and meals that are environmentally friendly. These people see their health is dependent on the health of their surroundings.
As Earth Day, on Tuesday, approaches, some are committing to reduce what one author terms their "fitness footprint."
Like a carbon footprint that measures environmental impacts from activities like driving and cooling the house, a fitness footprint is the impact from lifestyle choices like diet and exercise.
Kathleen Rogers, president of the information clearinghouse Earth Day Network, said the nascent trend might result from the barrage of stories about warmed air, fouled water and tainted food, as well as the growing obesity epidemic. They've see Al Gore's movie about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, or the television show The Biggest Loser, which asks contestants and viewers to eschew disposable water bottles.
Rogers and others believe that many people, particularly in tough economic times, are making lifestyle decisions based on immediate costs. They'll ride a bike or walk to work when gas is expensive and buy organic food when the price isn't higher. But she said more people are considering the long-term costs to their health and surroundings.
"Helping your community ultimately helps yourself," she said. "What we're seeing is an increasing understanding of the risks and benefits of environmental protection. They range from actions people can take to protect their kids from asthma and extend to everything we put in our bodies."
Author Carole Carson said she coined the "fitness footprint" term to put a name to the ethic.
Carson wrote From Fat to Fit, the story of how she helped herself and her small California town lose a collective 8,000 pounds and develop a community spirit. She speaks and writes about exercising and health - and protecting the planet.
