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Does Sprawl Make Us Fat?
Ant writes "A Science News article talks about the relationship between city design and health. New cross-disciplinary research is exploring whether urban sprawl makes us soft, or whether people who don't like to exercise move to the sprawling suburbs, or some combination of both." From the article: "So far, the dozen strong studies that have probed the relationships among the urban environment, people's activity, and obesity have all agreed, says Ewing. 'Sprawling places have heavier people... There is evidence of an association between the built environment and obesity.' ... However, University of Toronto economist Matthew Turner charges that 'a lot of people out there don't like urban sprawl, and those people are trying to hijack the obesity epidemic to further the smart-growth agenda [and] change how cities look.' ... 'We're the only ones that have tried to distinguish between causation and sorting... and we find that it's sorting,' [says Turner]. 'The available facts do not support the conclusion that sprawling neighborhoods cause weight gain.'"
The objections quoted in TFS are debunked quite well in the linked science article. Additionally, research earlier this year shows teenagers living in sprawling suburbs were more than twice as likely to be overweight as teens in more compact urban areas
;-)
These kids have never moved, never had a choice about where they live and are still much fatter.
It's a no brainer really. Less walking opportunities = less energy expenditure = more stored energy (as well as eating crap on those long, boring car journeys to work/school to save on cooking time at home so you can sit in front of the idiot box).
Anyway, the failure of town planners is going to work out by itself in the end. As oil prices skyrocket & people in the suburbs grow fatter, the solution become obvious. Liposuction clinics combined with gas stations
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Let me try to sort this out:
YES, not having to walk around very much will make it more likely you won't get the exercise necessary not to be fat.
NO, it does not "cause" it (in the sense they want you to take it); you can still make the choice to exercise on your own, irrespective of how much you need to walk in a day for other purposes.
YES, there's probably a correlation between "how much people in this city have to walk" and "how fat they generally are" that persists after the appropriate controls.
NO, that's a bad, ad-hoc reason to fix urban sprawl. Urban sprawl is bad because it leads to time-wasting congestion and forces people to have to use cars, which sucks for anyone who can't or doesn't like to drive, and exposes people to the risk of energy price fluctuations unnecessarily. It also contributes to pollution. There, I just made a strong case why sprawl is bad, without resorting to being a health Nazi.
I'd like to plug my latest joural entry, which describes a way cities could transition gradually to less sprawl, without tedious regulation, government-run services, and invasive control over people's lives. In short: put up tolls heavy enough to clear congestion. This creates the financial incentives necessary for market-driven mass transit, which in turn makes denser development more economical and desirable to live in.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Fat, yes. Not to mention stupid. I know some very intelligent, down-to-earth city folk, but I swear most of them live just outside the realm of reality.
Yeah, well, not all of us were able to get into Costco law school like you and your elite friends.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
Sprawl didn't make me fat. Eating more calories than I burn made me fat.
"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." - A. S. LaVey
In many sprawling communities, walking past the driveway/subdivision is asking to die.
That's not hyperbole, but a basic consequence of planning that is downright hostile to anyone who isn't behind the wheel of a car. I don't believe cars should be eliminated, but car-dependance is a truly awful thing that I'm glad that I've been able to break free of...but I don't know for how long. The attitude of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority isn't friendly to mass transit. In the words of their last General Manager "the automobile won" and light rail is obsolete. Buses are the future, apparently. In the last few decades, automobile registrations in Boston have tripled as rail lines have been shut down or cut back dramatically in favor of surprise bustitution that suddenly becomes permanent.
It's depressing enough to see a new cookie-cutter car-dependant community rise up where a forest used to be, but it's even worse when a city with an excellent transit system that encourages people to ride the train then walk decides that it wants to be just like PinePointeAutumnPreserveRegistryReserveGrove Habitation Area #49485776893-B and compel people to pick up the bad habits of the suburbs.
that and civic design. Here in Houston I challenge you to ride a bike from point A to point B. There are no sidewalks, no back roads that go through, no bike lanes, what bike lanes that do exist are right next to fast moving over sized commercial loads that reguard that as a "vehicle sprawl" lane. Figure in unstable buisness environments that virtually guarantee that if you move close enough to work to walk/bike you will lose your job and be forced to work forty miles away.
When I lived in Phoenix, I rode my bike everywhere. Now that I live in Houston (one of the most sprawled cities in existance) I have gained massive amounts of weight, and regularly commuted 3+ hours a day.
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Losing weight is incredibly simple. The entire topic can be covered in 4 words: Eat less, exercise more.
Not surprisingly people become ugly fat porkers because they don't follow that simple four word formula.
(This isn't self-righteous spew -- I need to lose about 20kg to be at my optimal weight. At least I know the only person I have to blame is myself.)
Some people are like slinkies--basically useless but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.
We all generally EAT TOO MUCH! Our guts are too big and so our hunger satisfaction signal is delayed. Working out and being active is good and all, but that's not the biggest part of what's wrong. It's WHAT we eat and how much of it we eat. That's why these stomach stapling operations are so remarkably effective. It's clearly not that these people have been working out too little, but that they have been eating too much. The solution is most simple and direct.
EAT LESS.
I'm kind of over-weight myself... I'm working on it... sorta. I never claimed the answer would be easy... I'm just identifying the problem for what it really is. Working out and being more active to "compensate" for the enormous amount of food we take in doesn't leave much time with family, friends or work. It's nearly impossible to work out enough to compensate for the diets most of us indulge in... just eat less.
Yeah, fat genes. Good one. There is no such thing. If there were such a thing, we could breed a race of superfat humans who can exercise constantly and still gain weight. Second law, eat your heart out!
The kids are fat because their parents are fat and the whole household eats chicken fried steak and gravy on a bed of iceberg lettuce covered with Kraft Singles and ranch dressing. And the little lard buckets take a car to school and back and play Nofreindo when they are at home.
Humans are incredible walking machines. We have a higher endurance than any other land mammal. We are built to walk and walk and walk some more. When a human doesn't walk, they get fat. It's a pretty simple system.
I'm sorry to hear that you hate real cities. I know that culture and the arts can be a pain in the ass and are best eradicated. And I hate having to see all those interesting people all over the place. Man, I wish I could move back to Midwest City so I could drive everywhere and never interact with anybody.
Strangely enough, it is only in America that inner-cities are more dangerous than suburbs. In Australia and Europe, inner cities are seen as desirable places to live compared to the suburbs.
Maybe the original idea was to escape factories, but now the US has far less manufacturing capacity, so that isn't it anymore... what is it? Low gas prices (compared to the rest of the world) keep suburbs cheap, and black people tend to live in cities so it's undesirable to whites?
I come from Denmark but am staying in Minneapolis for a year. In Denmark you can walk to a nearby mall or at least a well-stocked convenience store pretty much no-matter where you live if you do not live too far from the central city. Where I live in Denmark I can *walk* to *everything* I need to do on a regular basis, and everything else is within convinient biking or bus distance. I don't have a car and I would have a use for a driver's license maybe once a year (when living in Denmark, that is).
Now, in Minneapolis, practically nothing is within walking distance no matter where you live and the bus system is an absolute pain to figure out even using their online planner. Not having a car around here is a serious social handicap, and it makes shopping a taxing experience, because everything is spread out within a huge area. I can't help but conclude that people around here actually *enjoy* spending alot of time in their cars, so that distance is an advantage to them.
Other than that, this is a very nice place, but for people who live here permanently, not having a car is simply not a workable option.
Bjarke Roune
I used to live in Lexington, KY. While you wouldn't call it urban, it isn't sprawling either. I'm an avid cyclist, and I lived a couple blocks from downtown in the Chevy Chase area. Lovely. Great location. Why? Because I could be on my bike, out the driveway, and into the countryside in under five miles. I walked a mile to work. As of April of last year, I was down 10 lbs. from my regular weight, and I wasn't even trying. It was every day life that afforded me the ability to burn those calories.
Now, I live in the Northern Kentucky/Greater Cincinnati area. Talk about sprawl. There's no riding out my driveway and out into the countryside without a trunk rack and a minimum 10-minute drive away from the 'burbs. I'm just off KY18, a freeway of certain death for a cyclist. I'd sooner enter a competitive eating contest than venture out onto KY18 and get aced. I'm 10 lbs. overweight now: a 20 lbs. swing in the last nine months.
Point is, in the 'burbs, everyday life no longer suits a fit lifestyle.
Does sprawl make us fat?
I guess it depends on how much sprawl you eat.
A better question: If part of my body sprawls, am I fat?
New urbanism is probably a step in the right direction, but it appears to be missing critical elements of successful older neighborhoods. Jane Jacobs emphasizes the need for buildings of various ages (and which can be repurposed as the community changes): the book shops in old houses, funky music stores, arty cafes and so on that make for a hip urban environment often can't afford the rent of flashy new buildings. It strikes me as strange that a society which so strongly rejected the idea (if not always the practice) of central planning during the Cold War prides itself in its "master planned" communities."
Furthermore, a vibrant community requires more than just residential and commercial uses. The plans I have seen often look attractive, but on closer examination bear a striking resemblance to malls turned inside out and mixed with housing. They may have greenspace or plazas, but like the landscaping around so many highrises these are often private or effectively gated. The real test of urban spaces is whether they are used. Once built, the pretty designs of planners are often lonely places. On the other hand, sometimes the least attractive spaces are great successes (think of skate parks).
So I don't really think it's ironic the planners of gated communities are building new urban spaces which can also be privatized and desolate; they're simply taking their old approach of centralization and control and dressing it up in new clothes.
On the other hand, it's not all their fault. Developers who do want to take a risk often run into senseless rules regulating every detail of their communities, such as requirements for streets big enough for fire trucks to turn around in to minimum parking spaces, wide streets, huge setbacks in front of buildings, low densities, and so forth. Sprawl has been institutionalized in North America, and bureaucracy has been slow to change. (And I suspect rather than releasing their grip they're probably just making up new rules.)
There are a number of reasons why Americans prefer to live in suburbs. White flight, as you mentioned, is one. Another is that most of us like our space. I grew up in a house where the back yard was totally secluded and we had a wooded lot to one side. Lots of privacy - you didn't look out your window right into someone else's. I'm in a dorm now. I love being near my friends, but the walls are paper thin. I can hear everything that goes on in the rooms beside me, and if it's loud enough, I can hear the speakers of the guy living across the building. A third reason is that since cities tend to grow outwards, houses in the suburbs are newer and nicer than inner city ones.
I am intrigued by your recipe and would like to subscribe to your cookbook.
The disorders you linked to have an overall incidence on the order of 1 in 100000 people. The rate of being fat (in the USA) is 2 in 5. You do the math.
You are comparing apples and oranges. There are places in Colorado which are way more advanced the UK as far as pedestrianisation and cycling facilities.
Boulder and surrounding areas is a prime example - you can get on foot from anywhere to anywhere (there are others as well). Most of the city center is a huge no-car zone which is something that I did not expect to find outside Europe. Once you get outside the no-car area you still have cycling lanes on every road as well as cycle paths which combine into a huge cycling network that spans at least several miles out and penetrates into the neighbouring suburbia and business parks. All buses carry cycle racks and the driver is happy to pick up your cycle and drop it off.
After suffering from the half hearted assinine approach to cycling in Cambridge which is supposed to be the "greenest" and "cycliest" UK city, I felt like I have died and went to heaven. It simply felt unreal. No deliberate obstructions on the cycle paths with bollards. Sufficient and properly positioned car parking so that people are not forced to park on top of cycle lanes. All cycle paths are maintained and have proper visibility. Compared to that in Cambridge the average visibility on most cycle paths drops to under 10m in mid-summer due to the city council not giving a flying fuck about cutting any branches and doing any maintenance.
USA is not a sprawl all over and some portions of the sprawl are built in a healthier and more cycling/pedestrian friendly manner than anything in the UK and possibly most of EU. When looking at Boulder, the only comparison I can think of are the richer neighbourhoods in Finland (like Espoo). And even Espoo does not have a sky-run/cycle network all over like Boulder. It is confined to the center and the area where it connects to the mainland.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
"We all generally EAT TOO MUCH! Our guts are too big and so our hunger satisfaction signal is delayed. Working out and being active is good and all, but that's not the biggest part of what's wrong. It's WHAT we eat and how much of it we eat."
Actually, any doctor, physiologist or nutritionist will tell you that the problem has two parts: we don't exercise enough, and we eat too much. Both problems are equally important, and it's actually a far better idea to increase your activity than to drastically cut your caloric intake (if you're forced to choose). It's best to do both.
If you live a sedentary lifestyle but drastically cut calories, your body will eventually "decide" that you are starving, and will slow your metabolic rate to compensate (amongst other changes, such as the increase in serum cortisol levels, and the activation of lipid storage enzymes -- which essentially means that you'll begin to destroy muscle, in favor of preserving fat). This is why conventional diets do not work -- most people simply lose muscle mass (and/or water weight), eventually tire of starving themselves, and baloon back up to their pre-diet weight, with a lower lean body mass as a reward.
So, while the Big Mac culture is certainly a problem in the US, the only way to battle obesity in the long term is to encourage exercise. Dietary changes alone will not work.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
In the US, local commerce is rigidly controlled through zoning laws. It would be nice to have a neighborhood store, or set of shops, etc, but most local governments don't allow mixing commercial areas with residential.
It's simply against the law.
Land of the free, my ass.
"I eat complete shit, but he eats more shit than me, so I'm better!"
If you seriously eat what you listed then not only do you need to develope tastebuds but you also need to learn what good healthy food is. Cheese and chicken, water and noodles isn't good for you. You need a balanced diet where vegetables arn't dried and devoid of flavour.
Do yourself a favour and try cooking a proper meat and two veg meal daily, the crap you're eating is too much junk for anyone to ever be proud of eating.
I like muppets.
I live in a city that can be defined as the opposite of sprawl: Venice (Venezia), Italy. Buildings here are closer one to another than any place I know of. Some "calli" (pedestrian passages) are as narrow as half meter. Cars just don't enter the city beyond the parkings at the end of the bridge that connects it to the mainland, and even bikes are not allowed. You just walk. Every time your way intersects a canal, you have to go up and down the steps of a bridge. Because of the high density, the time spent moving from place to place in everyday business is not different from that in car-only cities. Remove the time spent looking for a parking place (a big problem in most Italian cities) and you have a net time advantage. You don't see many obese people in Venice and even elders citizens tend to be healthier than in other places. People meet and talk in the streets. Goods travel almost exclusively on water, on a network that is completely separate from that of persons. One of the downsides is a very uncomfortable environment for disabled people: wheelchairs weren't an option when the city was built!
Nuffsaid
________
Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
In the U.S. at least. We're afraid of crime and/or minorities and so we move further out to be away from them. We're afraid our kids will be abducted or abused so we drive them to the bus stop so that they can go to school, even though the bus stop is just a few blocks from our home. We then sit there with the engine running and the doors locked until the kids board the bus, and drive back home. Kids can't be allowed to play on their own, we have to constantly watch them if they want to go to the park. But thanks to our commute back and forth to work we don't have time to actually supervise them. So we forbid them to go out after school and leave them at home in front of the television or with their game consoles. Not to mention their sugary snacks and processed foods. Commuting parents often don't have time to actually prepare food from scratch.
Fear is the driving force behind sprawl, and fear sets the pattern for our sedentary lifestyles. It's our fears that make us fat.
As a culture we need to get over it.
Boulder is also a small, extremely wealthy community. This is not to discount what they've accomplsihed there. Attitude does make a difference in remaking a landscape, but not as much as wealth.
In a way, it reminds me of the John Christopher novel The Guardians. Most people are shovelled into sprawling "conurbs", where everything is engineered around efficiently supporting vast number of powerless people. The elite live in the "Country", using their wealth to live, superficially, as if they were in the nineteenth century. They helicopter from their jobs as adminstrators and professionals in the conurbs to hidden landing pads, then ride their horses back home.
What Christopher was writing about back in 1970 was overpopulation, but it also was about what we'd call today "urban sprawl". The logical end point of sprawl is to divide people into two classes, those who must live with it, and those who can evade its consequences by creating artificial enviornments where the logical consequences of sprawl are externalized.
So, in poor communities, you drive to the WalMart to buy things. In wealthy communities, we build replicas of the old village square or high street.
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