Suburban sprawl is polluting our planet—and our population. As if we needed further evidence that sprawl is something to be stopped, numerous reports have recently been published on the skyrocketing rate of childhood obesity. One of the major culprits? Cars, of course.
An article in the Green Guide tells the story of an eight-year-old girl, Jessica, who came home after a summer visit to grandma, and was so overweight, her mother scarcely recognized her. It wasn’t just the blueberry pie and lazy summer days that had made little Jessica morph into a big girl. It was inactivity, and sitting shotgun in granny’s car.
The child’s mother, Robin Pelleteir told the Green Guide that sprawl is largely to blame for girl’s weight gain:
She blames not only ice cream but also her sprawled-out hometown, lacking an interesting, pedestrian-friendly center with places a child could walk to and explore. The long distances between homes and stores, Pelletier remembers, "fostered a culture of inactivity." By the end of high school, Pelletier, at 5′ 5", weighed in at 170 pounds; she hit 200 before she was 20. That’s partly why, before college, she moved across the country to San Diego, a city that embraced physical fitness; she began walking and biking everywhere. The day her daughter returned from Grandma’s, 12 years ago, Pelletier put her back on a daily diet of nutritious food—that, with bicycling, got Jessica back in shape.
Acccording to Thomas Schmid, Ph.D, coordinator of the Active Community Environments (ACES) working group at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), "Kids are getting fatter and fatter because they’re being driven more and more and walking less and less.” Schmid noted studies by the U.S. Department of Transportation which found that the number of non-motorized trips kids take to school has declined by 40 percent over the last twenty years, and that the average number of pedestrian commuting trips Americans take per year has dropped by over 40 percent. (What happened to trudging nine miles in the snow, to and from?) Meanwhile, we’ve increased the number of car trips we make by 250 percent.
The Green Guide blames post-WWII planning for starting urban sprawl:
…A post-World War II building boom, driven by a surge in car ownership and housing for returning GIs, and spurred by government subsidies for road construction, home loans and gasoline consumption, has persisted until today. The result has been "sprawl": a pattern of spread-out development without a central core, dependent on car travel. "Sidewalks are often missing. Roadways are designed for vehicular ‘throughput’ and make foot or bike traffic downright dangerous," writes Neal Peirce, a Washington Post columnist.
A 2007 study by the University of Michigan found that our perception of childhood obesity is changing, too. Parents reported that their children, who were clinically obese, were “about the right weight.” Au contraire.
From the New York Times:
The numbers, alas, told another story. The parents were also asked to provide information about the children’s height and weight — and many of the 6-to-11- year-olds turned out to be obese. Yet more than 40 percent of their parents appeared unaware of this.
… Dr. Matthew M. Davis, a pediatrician and internist who directed the poll, said he and other doctors wondered why parents who brought overweight children in for appointments so often did not seem concerned.
But, Dr. Davis said, “If they don’t actually perceive their children to have excess weight, then how can we realistically expect them to make changes?”
Even as we get fatter and grow more reliant on our cars to get us from fast food restaurants to our sedentary jobs, we continue to miss the connection. Will we smarten up and realize that driving to Denny’s is bad for us, or will it, as Davis’s study shows, become something ordinary?
Photos via flickr by impactmatt & ben_templesmith.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I wonder how many feet of climbing he must have done. Wow..
He turned me off the first time he said he couldn’t find good/healthy food in America. From that point on I classified him as an idiot and one of those pompus A$$e$ that give Brits and Vegans a bad name. “poor selection” what was he doing hitting the McD’s and Burger King every 100 miles? Any cyclist that can’t find good energy food for cycling on their trip needs to do some better planning. Hopefully he suffered Montezuma revenge from his “poor selection” and I hope someone beats his record soon.
Why does it appear that there is a guy being run-over by the big red truck? The picture isn’t big enough to see properly…
yeah, weird photo for sure (if you look close). Those 2 trucks aren’t moving – there’s a guy standing next to the truck in the background as well, doing something. For some reason, they remind me of overly-decorated Indian elephants… adds to the international aspect of the epic journey!
Mark R: I bet finding healthy food in boondock parts of the US aint as easy as you suggest…
Sucker MC,
As some one who grew up in the “boondock['s]” of South Texas. thats a cop out for poor planning by some city rat who expects something on every corner to cater to them. Even in the boondocks we have these things, maybe he’s never seen one but they are called grocery store’s. They have every common healthy food you need to replenish your energy. sure your not going to find exotic, rare foods. But you will find the basic healthy necesities to sustain life. The dude is on a bike ride around the world not in SOHO. And again if he is complaining about being in the desert 500 miles from the nearest city and can’t find health food. well guess what he needs plan better before you get there. you see there are these people called cartographers, and they create these things called maps. now days you can get a gps that will tell you how close to the next grocery store. so poor planning is no excuse for being a whiny a$$ Brit. tell that red coat to kiss it.