It sounds like a lot of people really need to go on a diet.
What if we took some of the burden off our legions of weary dieters? We should put roads on diets, too. Rather than eating cabbage soup for weeks and paying Jenny Craig, our nation needs to take lanes out of roads (the diet) to create streets with transportation opportunities for people on bikes and people who are walking.
I spent a year in the Netherlands. I was struck by how their transportation system requires regular short bursts of light to moderate biking and walking. Since then, I've had a hunch that a great way to regulate the metabolism is frequent mild exercise. It always struck me as silly to sit or lie twenty three hours a day and then drive to the gym to totally obliterate your poor body on a machine. Who the hell really wants to do that instead of taking pleasant strolls and bike rides? Why should you have emulate an athlete to enjoy your G-d-given right to move your body?
Our country spent the last half century building a transportation system that engineered walking out of daily life. In our time pressed world, we ask Americans to also add exercise into their lives. After their nine hours spent in the office and hour and thirty minutes a day in the car getting to and fro, not to mention driving to errands, we are told to add an extra sixty minutes a day of exercise wearing weird clothes punishing ourselves on some sort of apparatus or we'll end up with the limb amputations. What if we just had zoning and codes that encouraged infill and density? Why does moving a single human body around town have to involve moving a three ton machine?
I was very interested to see reports about a new fangeled exercise craze that involves self locomtion. In the First Twenty Minutes, we learn that "While 20 minutes a day of walking or using the stairs at work will not make you truly fit, it will meaningfully lower your risk of premature death from the most common chronic diseases: diabetes, heart disease, cancer." That's great! That's less early death and punishing healthcare costs. I suggest that we pay as much attention to the physical environment as we do the food environment. Put the roads on a diet.
I've been hearing a lot lately about HBO's new four-part documentary "The Weight of the Nation." Actually, I've heard three things about it. I listened to a Diane Rehm episode, listened to a Fresh Air episode, and I read an article which contained this nice little synopsis: "The films try to reorient conversations about obesity away solely from personal responsibility and toward a combination of environmental circumstances to explain why 70 percent of Americans are, according to federal statistics, either overweight or obese. While personal responsibility is an important piece, “you cannot say that all these people have lost all their willpower,” Mr. Hoffman said. “There’s clearly something more powerful going on.” Factors cited by the films include federal farm subsidies, marketing strategies, changes in the work force, the content of high-caloric foods and the genetic makeup of individuals."
Hello? Built environment? Sidewalks? Preferably ones with destinations?
Both the Diane Rehm and Fresh Air shows touched very lightly on the fact our car dependent situation. The deck is most certainly stacked against us when it comes to pervasive marketing of health-destroying "food", but I'd argue that it can be even harder to free one's self from a car-oriented built environment than the grip of a twinkie (actually, I have a horrible time freeing myself from the grip of twinkies, so I'll say they are equal).
Of course, I'm happy to hear anyone beat a drum about the deleterious effects of feeding a nation nothing but reconstituted cheese doodles and Brawndo. I need to actually watch the Weight of the Nation to see if they go into more detail about the built environment, but I was struck that there weren't any urban planners on their panel of experts. We should all watch it anyway.
Of course, I'm happy to hear anyone beat a drum about the deleterious effects of feeding a nation nothing but reconstituted cheese doodles and Brawndo. I need to actually watch the Weight of the Nation to see if they go into more detail about the built environment, but I was struck that there weren't any urban planners on their panel of experts. We should all watch it anyway.
Another program I really want to see is Designing Healthy Communities. From their website,
" Almost everything in our built environment is the way it is because someone designed it that way. The project’s goal is to offer best practice models to improve our nation’s public health by re-designing and restoring our built environment."
That is music to my ears. Hopefully I can give you a complete review of both programs soon.
" Almost everything in our built environment is the way it is because someone designed it that way. The project’s goal is to offer best practice models to improve our nation’s public health by re-designing and restoring our built environment."
That is music to my ears. Hopefully I can give you a complete review of both programs soon.
This makes a lot of sense to me. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, my friends and I did a lot of walking and bike riding. Unlike many American cities, New York considered walking and bike riding forms of public transportation and built extensive sidewalks and some major bike trails, such as the one that ran down Ocean Parkway to Brighton Beach. I walked back and forth to Lincoln High School, three miles south of our home, regularly, which was obviously great exercise. It was a good idea then and a good idea now.
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