Cars More Fattening than Cake
by Kate Trainor on November 20, 2007
Cars may be the single biggest contributor to the world’s growing obesity rate. An increase in people’s car usage has led to lack of daily exercise. Short trips are done on foot less often and, in the U.K., even the minimal walking that integrates with public transportation use has declined.
The Institute for European Environmental Policy recently published a
report entitled “Unfit for purpose: how car use fuels climate change and obesity.” According to the study, by adopting the exercise and car usage model of 30 years ago (which involves walking just one more hour during the week) British people could reduce the emissions from passenger cars by 15.4% and avoid an average weight gain of 2lbs 11 ounces per year. Time spent walking annually during this timespan has decreased from 67 hours per person to 47. Annual driving time has shot up from 91 hours to 151 hours per driver.
These statistics are nothing short of staggering. The best, easiest way to combat global warming, live longer, decrease health care costs, and improve national security? A slight decrease in driving.
The British newspaper The Guardian followed the report with a not-so-subtly-titled
editorial, “The fume-spewing, fattening car is also utterly expendable.”
From the Guardian:
By the year 5555, prophesied the one-hit wonders Zager and Evans in their queasy late-60s record In the Year 2525, our arms will have gone floppy and our legs grown useless because we’ll have "some machine" to do the work that once kept our limbs healthy. That machine has already been invented. It’s called the car, and it does more damage to our bodies, our built environment, our climate and our communities than anyone who drives a lot seems prepared to admit, even to themselves.
Related posts:
- Scottish Man Pedals ‘Round the World
- More Dangerous NOT to Ride a Bike
- British Health Organization Puts Walkers and Cyclists First
- London’s Livingstone Leads the Way to a City-Wide Carectomy
- EPA Protects Cars, Not the Planet
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
The new high fuel milage cars are priced so high that those that can afford them don’t need them and those of us that need them can’t afford them!
My wife and I recently (in March) moved closer to her work in the city and sold our 2007 Honda Fit. We are now completely car-less and debt-free for the first time since our freshman year in college! Our family and friends call us crazy but our new neighbors are happy for us with admitted envy. Thanks carectomy for all your support and advice! We are happy to join the ranks of the bike militia. Peddle on friends!
I don’t think this is a sign that the American love affair with the car is ending… but I do think it will lead to that. As more and more people bike, walk, and take public tansit, they will realize what they’ve missed by driving cars everywhere. Then fewer people will want them even if the economy does improve, or someone does actually create a car that is truly economical.
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