How Hiking Could Help Change the Fate of Rural Appalachia
One Sunday every month, always after church, the Breathitt County Hiking Club meets outside the public library in Jackson, Kentucky to caravan to a trailhead. On an afternoon in early June, Stephen Bowling, the library’s executive director, eagerly waited inside the glass doors for the group to arrive for their trip to Copperas Creek Trail in Red River Gorge, about 40 minutes away.
As people trickled in, Bowling happily fielded questions about the hike. “How long is it again?” asked Phyllis Light, a 74-year-old wearing clean white Skechers. Her friend Doris Newton, an outspoken middle-aged woman who works at the local hardware store, hopped out of the car with her dog. “What’s the difficulty level?” Newton asked as her husband took a drag of his cigarette and laughed about how he wore swim shoes instead of hiking boots.
Bowling, a 45-year-old father with a toothy grin, has been hosting these monthly field trips since the beginning of the year. An avid backpacker, he has hiked hundreds of miles on the Appalachian Trail and elsewhere in the Southeast, an experience he’s determined to share with others. Bowling’s new hiking club, sponsored by the Breathitt County Public Library, is his latest effort to get people in this rural town out into nature. The trips usually attract around 20 people. “A little bit here, a little bit there. We’ll get them moving,” he says. Most of Bowling’s patrons lack any experience in the outdoors and don’t fancy themselves hikers, bikers, or fitness enthusiasts. But Bowling doesn’t judge; he’s just happy they’ve showed up.
That’s because rural Appalachia is the unhealthiest place in the country by almost any metric: lowest life expectancy and education levels; highest rates of poverty, unemployment, and physical inactivity; and severe lack of access to health care and health food, according to the annual Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings Report. Bowling believes he can begin to improve this situation by introducing his peers to the outdoors, so he started his monthly hikes to put a small dent in the growing public health crisis and alleviate the sense of fatalism in his community. “It’s a depressed area economically, but also emotionally and physiologically,” Bowling says. “We’re told constantly that we’re the least-healthy people, we are this, we are that, and people don’t feel empowered to change that. Some people aren’t willing, and some people aren’t able.”
After a short drive on that spring day, the 14-person group arrived at a trailhead deep in the Daniel Boone National Forest. The overgrown brush was still damp from rain earlier that week, leaving the 90-degree Kentucky air muggy. All together, they excitedly started up the trail, asking about poison ivy, pointing out tree species they’d discussed at a recent local event, and staring in awe at the forest. “Wow, this is just amazing,” said 47-year-old Julie Stamper as she put her cigarette out and stuffed the butt into her backpack. “I’ve never been to a place like this before.”
Isolated geographically and culturally by the rolling Appalachian Mountains, Appalachia is a prime example of the rural-urban wellness divide. The region has dealt with climbing poverty rates for decades. Today, 25 percent of people in Eastern Kentucky and 20 percent of those in Appalachian Virginia live below the poverty line, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission. Out of the top ten counties in the United States with the largest declines in life expectancy, eight are in Kentucky. One is the former coal-mining county of Breathitt, which has a population of nearly 14,000 people—98 percent white, most over 40 years old. Nearly half the population is obese, about a third smoke, and a third are physically inactive. The unemployment rate is almost 12 percent.
Many people, like Bowling, believe more access to public lands and increased opportunities for physical activity can help address some of these problems. Although outdoor recreation isn't a cure-all for poverty, it’s part of the story, says Laura Dwyer-Lindgren, researcher at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. A Georgia case study concluded that public lands could be used as one element in a comprehensive strategy to address public health issues in rural areas. Other communities in the Southeast are responding to such findings by increasing local engagement efforts to get people outside, says Jerry Spegman, a community coach for County Health Rankings and Roadmaps. “Even if a town doesn’t land on a hiking club as its solution, there are widespread efforts in other states in the region [...] to get better at working with people on the ground at this,” he says.
https://www.outsideonline.com/2195101/one-mans-fight-change-fate-rural-appalachia?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WYM-07172017-Affiliate&utm_content=WYM-07172017-Affiliate+CID_6d0735d6c417535013645fb614a05a13&utm_source=campaignmonitor%20outsidemagazine&utm_term=the%20unhealthiest%20place%20in%20the%20country
