In fact, they're fat. At least according to a study by the University of Maryland's National Center for Smart Growth Education and Research. The new study, which echoes a 2003 study by the same group that focused on adults, found that
teenagers living in sprawling suburbs were more than twice as likely to be overweight as teens in more compact urban areas, Reuters reports (via
PlanetArk). Dr. Reid Ewing, one of the authors of the study, pointed to a relatively sedentary lifestyle relative to city dwellers as one of the reasons suburban kids are more likely to be overweight, and found suburban car culture to be particularly troubling. Cars, he said, have become "de facto snack shops" for fast-food-eating kids.
The Seattle Times reports that Seattle has released
"the latest draft of a 10-year bicycle master plan," which will actually be funded by $32 million available to the Seattle Department of Transportation after voters passed Proposition 1, a nine-year, $360 million property tax levy. The city has committed to complete street principles that will require road reconstruction to include bike lanes and sidewalks. The city will also make a significant investment in bike-friendly infrastructure like 21 miles of new trails, five bicycle overpasses, and road diets that will convert four-lane streets into two lanes, plus a third turning lane and bike lanes. All of which makes us ask, Would a plan like this fly in any city other than Seattle? Probably Portland.
A raft of studies have been published lately linking obesity with suburban sprawl--the common theory being that suburban folks are more at risk of obesity because they spend more time driving from one location to another instead of walking. However, a new study by researchers at the University of Toronto, the London School of Economics, and Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain says the opposite is true:
People prone to obesity choose to live in the suburbs because they would rather drive than walk. In other words, it's a chicken-and-egg thing. Matthew Turner, a professor of economics at the University of Toronto, further accuses smart growth advocates of "hijacking the public health system" with their theories that suburbanites will become fat. "They are taking public resources and diverting them to what might be a worthwhile policy agenda, but not one that will not resolve the problem of obesity,'' he tells the
Ottawa Citizen.
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