Welcome to Mental Health Awareness Month
We want to kick off Mental Health Awareness month with a shout out to our teacher champions and partners who have shown great resilience in the face of continued change, to celebrate Outride youth for all that you’ve outridden this school year, and to recognize our ambassadors for sharing their experiences and helping to raise awareness of Outride’s work.
We also want to thank you, our community, for your sustained interest in and support of our work. Progress would not be possible without all of you!
This issue, we want to discuss the impact of the COVID years on our youth, which have been grim at best. The New York Times reports, “Federal research shows that teenagers as a group are…getting less sleep and exercise and spending less in-person time with friends — all crucial for healthy development.” In the last year alone, 15.08% of youth experienced a major depressive episode.
Thankfully, Outride’s recent Research Report provides hopeful data that illuminates what we intuitively know, that riding bikes lead to better mental wellness, less screen time among youth, and stronger community outcomes. Students in the Riding for Focus program who either met recommendations for sleep (at least 8 hours a night), physical activity (60 minutes a day), or recreational screen time (2 hours or less a day) all reported higher levels of well-being than those who did not, even with accounting for gender, rurality, child poverty rate, race and ethnicity, or school.
Through our research, we strive to provide resources to improve youth mental wellness in our nation. Please share our research report with your followers or consider ways that we can work together to put more kids on bikes and mitigate the impact of mental illness in youth.
Our research partners at the University of Wyoming found immediate improvement in attention and depressive symptoms, as well as improved ADHD after college students participated in HIIT intervals. Research proves time and again that physical activity is a powerful way to support our bodies and brains for better emotional well-being. If we prioritize modeling self-care for ourselves and for our youth — this includes riding bikes, getting outdoors, adequate sleep, and finding shared connection with others.
Outride Fund Grant Update
In other news, we look forward to announcing our Spring 2022 Outride Fund grantees later this month. The selected Outride Fund grants will be selected from new and returning grantees that will lead to improved community outcomes, help to end bike deserts, and continue Outride’s mission to get kids on bikes for their socioeconomic health and well-being. We look forward to sharing the efforts of Outride Fund soon!
How To Get Involved
We know the power of stories — to illuminate and connect us — and we are recommitting our focus on organizations, strategies, and stories empower Outride participants on our social media channels and communications.
We would love the opportunity to elevate your Outride journeys by sharing your stories with our followers and sharing your Outride efforts on your social media channels. Follow along with us as we use the power of storytelling to bring community engagement around the issues that matter most to you.
Onward together,
The Outride Team
Riding For Focus: 2022 Research
Our 2022 report, Riding for Fun, Friends, and Fitness: Advancing Youth Health and Well-being through Outride's Riding for Focus Program, shares quantitative and qualitative evidence that bicycling can transform student health and well-being for the better! Please share the report with your community! We hope this report will people catalyze support for and expand youth cycling opportunities in their community.
The 2022 Research Summit Is Coming!
The dates for the 2022 Research Summit will be announced soon. We look forward to collaborating with our community partners this summer!
Last year was our 5th Annual Research Summit with over 600 registrants and 22 presentations, all participating virtually. Advancing Youth and Community Well-Being through Cycling covered topics as wide-ranging as measuring brain activation and youth development, to programmatic models centering youth voice, to cycling as a social justice issue.
Catching Up With Meg Fisher at Sea Otter
Outride recently met with Meg Fisher at Sea Otter and Cannondale’s panel on diversity and inclusion in cycling. Follow us on social media for the latest up-to-date progress of the Outride team!