Does this look like a nice place to go for a jog?
...Or a bike ride?
Obesity has been labeled as an "epidemic" that threatens the health of many Americans across the nation. Recent landmark studies, including the American Journal of Health Promotion (AJHP) study, ''Relationship between Urban Sprawl and Physical Activity, Obesity, and Morbidity;'' and the Surface Transportation Policy Project and Smart Growth America (SGA) report, ''Measuring the Health Effects of Sprawl,'' link the growing obesity epidemic with sprawl.
Although this connection might not seem obvious at first, after one considers the spread out, auto-oriented design of sprawling communities, the connection becomes more clear.
Does this look like a nice place to go for a jog? |
...Or a bike ride? |
As Smart Growth Leadership Institute president, former Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening, claims:
|
"With
sprawl, we are designing obesity, high blood pressure, heart attacks,
and asthma right into our lives.''
|
This is because
sprawl design leaves it either impossible or dangerous for people to
get around their communities by foot or bike, so they don't. People
drive everywhere either because their destinations are too spread out
or because they are not safely accessible by any other mode. This promotes
inactivity, which has a direct impact on health and comes through in
the reports that document that in sprawling areas, people walk less,
weigh more, and often suffer from higher blood pressure and hypertension.
The authors of AJHP's study report that inactivity and obesity contribute
to more than 200,000 premature deaths each year.
Solutions
Smart Growth development provides solutions to the health crisis due
to inactivity by promoting walkable, pedestrian friendly communities.
Specific solutions include investing in sidewalks, bike lanes, and street
safety improvements, making it safe for children to walk and bike to school,
calming traffic with speed bumps and by other means, promoting walking
instead of driving, focusing residential and commercial development around
transit stations to facilitate walking (or transit
oriented development), and revitalizing older walkable neighborhoods.
More Information
Read the reports
and articles:
''Measuring
the Health Effects of Sprawl'' (SGA)
"Leadership
for Active Living Strategies" (SGA)
''Relationship
between Urban Sprawl and Physical Activity, Obesity, and Morbidity"
(UMD)
"Active
Living, Obesity, and Nutrition" (Robert Wood Johnson)
"The
Transportation Bill Could Slim Us Down", by
David Goldberg
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