Citing obesity, cancer, and heart disease rates in the sedentary, Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (that’s “Nice” for short) has recommended that city planners and architects design exercise into towns and new buildings.
Mike Kelly, director of Nice’s center for public health excellence, estimates that inactivity costs Britain £8.2 billion per year in related health maladies. He compares the actions necessary to improve public health to changes undergone 150 years ago to prevent the spread of infectious disease. Although the root cause of sedentary peoples’ demise is more hidden than a debilitating illness, the result may be no less insidious or widespread.
Philip Insall, director of Sustrans‘ active travel programme, is a member of the guidance committee. He said that while in Basel, Switzerland, only a quarter of trips in the city were by car "in a UK city of the same size it is probably two-thirds". Nice cited as a good example Leicester, where children are involved in designing streets safe to play in.
The government welcomed Nice’s guidance. "One of the big challenges in tackling climate change is use of the private car and anything which encourages people to walk and cycle more will help," said Joan Ruddock, minister for climate change, biodiversity and waste at Defra.
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