The Secret Reason You're Fat?
The newswires were buzzing this week about a new study that further explains why Americans are obese. But fair warning: It may cause you to roll your eyes.
According to researchers at the University of North Carolina, walking or biking to work, even part way, leads to better health and fitness, and a lower body mass index, compared to driving to the office. Yet only about 17 percent of Americans are active commuters. The take-home message: Cars are making us fat.
Our reaction: Thanks for the news flash, but unfortunately, we live in the real world where riding a bike to work just isn't practical for most people—whether it's because of a 20-plus mile commute, family priorities such as dropping the kids off at school, or just no shower facilities at the office.
The truth is, cars aren't making us fat. Overall inactivity and poor nutrition are the real culprits. Use these flat-belly resources to make sure you're not on the wrong side of the statistics.
I can't tell what is a quote and what is you.
That said, poor urban planning is a huge part of the problem. There is a reason why other nations aren't as obese as ours and it's not just because they may or may not have better diets than us.
That's all Men's Health.
"Thanks for the news flash, but unfortunately, we live in the real world where riding a bike to work just isn't practical for most people—whether it's because of a 20-plus mile commute, family priorities such as dropping the kids off at school, or just no shower facilities at the office."
I just found the passage above irritating. I guess by their estimation, the "real world" isn't conducive to bike commuting.
If people were in mildly good health a 20 mile commute would be nothing
I am irritated by the "it's not practical" excuse all the time. There are ways, if you don't want to do it just say so!
For any magazine - check the number of pages of car ads they have.
For example "Bicycling" usually has about 12 full pages of car ads. When they bring out their special "Current Products" lists, they don't include utility bikes.
Mick
The best response, and please someone else respond with a letter to the editor, is to say "this is a great reason why we need to invest in better bike infrastructure. bike paths, bike lanes, bike racks, lockers, shower facilities etc. The investment will save us millions in health care costs and costs due to lost productivity due to porr health."
A 20 mile commute by bike is about three hours out of your day. That is a lot of time that many people don't have. But as rsprake says, it's poor planning and land-use policies that makes those 20-mile commutes faster by automobile. And a 20-mile commute by the mildly healty might be "nothing" in good weather, but it gets a lot harder in rain and snow.
All that said, it's why I'm a bike advocate -- bikeability and efficient land-use policies go hand in hand.
Ha, yeah, 20 mile commute in hilly pgh in the rain, then 20 miles back? 40 miles a day is much more than mildly good health. I think the most we could ask average people to ride is about 5 miles. I'm in the urban planning camp.
As a footnote, I agree that most Americans don't know how to eat.
"the real world" = the suburbs?
nobody forces these idiots to live what 100 years ago was a day trip away from their place of employment
Prediction: By 2030, the suburbs will be the slums. Might not have to wait that long, if there's a spike in fuel prices.
What we're trying to do here, now, is lay the groundwork that will ALLOW people, in large numbers, to bike 5 maybe 10 miles each way, and it's going to take 10 years to get all that bike-friendly infrastructure in place.
Yeah, I've been thinking about how I live without a car. If that become popular, prices in the places where I want to live will go up.
Some places, like Paris, France, the suburbs are the slums, now.
Mick
Speaking as someone who did ~40 miles round trip for about four months--if you have a family, and want to spend time with them, it does suck. Riding across Neville Island every day also sucks.
That's why I left that company (they had moved from Hampton to Sewickley) and took a job in the South Side. I agree with Steevo--people follow the money, and companies move to the 'burbs because no one complains about massive commutes.
Most employees want to live in the suburbs, anyhow, I think. Even for a biker, if you wanted to live far enough out from the city to, say, own a horse, you would be much better off working in Sewickley than on the south side.
The big difference is that bikers will consider leaving a job if it is a huge pain to bike to work.
If you tell a realator that you want to live close enough to work that you could walk if you have to, they will look at you as if you are insane. I know this for a fact.
Mick
Mick, I'm not sure that most employees want to live in the suburbs. They may want a certain kind of housing, school district, "convenience" and other things, and many of them likely perceive that those things are available only in the suburbs, available mostly only there, or that they can only afford them there.
There are theories of economic development that suggest that as a place's distance from "core" areas decreases, the cost of real estate will fall as much as the cost of transportation will rise. So, a big house in the suburbs may be cheaper than a comparable place in the city, but your transportation costs (to get downtown, at least) will be higher in Fox Chapel and Monroeville than Lawrenceville or the South Side, but, according to the theory, the total cost of transportation plus real estate will be (more or less) equal at any radius.
"Costs," I'd say, are generally assumed in this auto-centric model, to be car-related (purchase, gas, maintenance) but in a reworked form could easily be transit fares, bike upgrades and indeed the additional time and opportunity cost for these slower modes, as bjanaszek mentioned. One can also argue that although the apparent T+RE total for a suburban commuter is comparable to a city liver, depending on the exact model of costs used, it can neglect some hidden costs, including but not limited to pollution, obesity and health more generally, aesthetic costs (paving paradise to put up a parking lot) and such indirect costs as maintaining military forces overseas to secure safe passage for billions of gallons of oil.
I suppose this is just my very roundabout way of saying that I, too, expect super-commuting trends to decline and urban density patterns to be closer to what they were in 1920. I'd expect that Pittsburgh could fairly easily rehabilitate neighborhoods that have fallen on tough times non-automotive transportation modes (including especially rail). As Stu suggests, it would be best to get a head start on such infrastructure work, but in my (admittedly limited) experience, until it's not economically realistic to do otherwise, we won't see too much progress.
Oh, and I'm glad to be called out on my half-forgotten economic theory if anyone who actually knows what he or she is talking about wants to disagree.
In my limited experience, we won't see much progress until it's long past the point of being economically realistic.
The whole school district thing is a prime mover to get people into the suburbs. We know several families that have left the city because they thought their kids would get a better education in the 'burbs. There's probably some truth to that, but most of these families also walk a financial tightrope to afford living in the 'burbs.
One thing to consider, however--there are plenty of employers in the suburbs. It doesn't do us much good if people move to the city, then commute out of the city to the 'burbs.
I do agree that we will see some restructuring very soon, however.
One thing to consider, however--there are plenty of employers in the suburbs. It doesn't do us much good if people move to the city, then commute out of the city to the 'burbs.
Very true. I lived and worked in town, until my previous employer shifted their base of operations to Cranberry. Rode the bike out there once or twice a week, but that's just too darn far and highly trafficked for 5-day-a-week commutes from town.
As a side note, (not that I intend to excuse the "let me live 50 miles from my job, then complain about the commute" mindset), that is one common case where people frequently end up with significantly worse commutes than they would otherwise choose. Half-decent job and a family who depends on your paycheck makes it significantly harder to say "No thanks, I quit" on the spot to a company that moves its employees elsewhere.
There's an unfortunate (and deeply ingrained) idea that living in the city is something that one outgrows, particularly when kids reach school age.
Very, very often, when someone learns I live in the city, the next thing I hear is, "But what do you do about schools?" as if the answer couldn't possibly be that my son attends public school.
The suburbs are a tempting prospect when shopping for a new home. They are cheaper, newer, require less work to move into, have nicer yards etc. But when tasked with the hell of commuting into work everyday they become less appealing.
We have been looking at places in Forest Hills and the thought of riding my bike on Ardmore Blvd even for a mile is turning me off to the idea.
We did make a deal that we won't move into a neighborhood that doesn't have sidewalks.
Being-Ahead-Of-The-Curve Department: In 1991 we moved from New Stanton to McCandless to be near my wife's work. My by-car commute distance didn't change, but since I insisted we be near a transit line, I was able to jettison two of our four cars right off, and later a third. I became transit dependent by choice. The $990/year I now spend for an annual (Zone 2) pass is roughly equal to just the insurance on the second car, never mind fuel, repairs, payments, etc. That made it incumbent upon me to learn the bus system intimately, and now in combination with the bike, not only do I not need a second car, I almost never drive at all. The savings: At least $5,000 a year, every year, for the last 18 years. And all that walking and biking has kept me in darn good shape for 50.
