Does Sprawl Make Us Fat? 659
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.'"
Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The human race has come from lean mean hunting machines(?) to the slobs we are. The more technology we have, the more we turn into slobs.
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:5, Funny)
For example, my employment contract is "at will". If they don't wanna pay me anymore they tell me and stop paying me. If they had to "change their lifestyle" to stop paying me, that wouldn't be "at will".
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:4, Informative)
Kind of like how back in the day infantrymen were sometimes ordered to "fire at will" - this means they could choose their own targets and choose when to fire, not that the guns didn't have stiff triggers.
Tsk.
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:5, Insightful)
Be sure to get some good health insurance for the time being. Life will get expensive then. No offense.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Seriously, I always believed that _how_ one chooses to live contributes to their health more than where.
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:4, Insightful)
Right, but the point of the article is that a suburban environment encourages unhealthy choices (e.g. by making it impractical to walk anywhere) while an urban environment encourages healthy ones (e.g. by making it impractical to drive anywhere).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I do believe
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
1 eat less
2 exercise off the difference
3 do both
Most people with a healthy weight aren't that way because they exercise they're that way because they eat as many calories as their body needs to sustain itself, and no more. Exercise
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not trying to be argumentative, but just saying that I tried to choose what I said as carefully as possible. No matter how fast, or slow your metabolism is if you are gaining weight it's because you are eating to much. just because there's a guy out there that can eat 4,500 calories a day sit on his but and not gain an ounce, doesn't mean that a 310lb. and climbing guy that consumes 2,200 calories a day isn't over eating. Yes they obviously have different metabolisms, yes one guy can eat more than the other without gaining weight, but that doesn't mean that the guy that's consuming fewer calories isn't over eating, he's just consuming fewer calories than someone with a different "body chemistry" than himself.
I kept talk of metabolism out of my post because the simple fact is regardless of your metabolism if you're overweight, genuinely overweight you are consuming too many calories. It's a simple proven fact:
If you want to loose weight cut calories.
Call it whatever you want use what ever excuses you wish to justify some one gaining weight, but the simple fact is if they're gaining weight they're over eating. Regardless of how much they eat in comparison to someone else.
All of that isn't even taking into account that a lot of the CO(chronically obese of which I am still one of) do things like hide their eating from other people they consume less in public, and then eat more in secret. So while they say they eat X the really ate X+whatever they ate after they got home, and locked the door. There are few people with hyper-metabolisms out there just like there are few people with hypo-metabolisms. by definition the average person has an average metabolism. This included myself even when I was close to 400lbs. My problem wasn't a slow metabolism it was overeating. I could have sat on my ass and said "woe is me I eat as much as Bob and I gain weight while he stays thin." Or I could come to grips with the fact that the amount of food Bob ate, and the amount of food I needed were totally unrelated.
Stop worrying about the quantity of the food you consume comparatively and worry more about how much you need to consume actually. Like I said most people with a healthy weight aren't so because they exercise, hell most people with a healthy weight aren't so because they have faster metabolisms. They're of a healthy weight because they consume as many calories as they need and no more. A good portion of the population bulks-up around the holiday season regardless of how they look the rest of the year, because they consume a lot more calories during the holiday season. Again regardless of how fast their metabolism is. It happens to fat, and thin people alike.
"There are differences in metabolisms which can impact the effectiveness of weight loss attempts"
To the extent that one person will need to consume fewer calories than another to loose weight yes of course. But if you're not losing weight at a fast enough pace for you satisfaction then consume fewer calories(within reason). We all know that if your body needs extra energy, and it's not getting it from food it will have to get it from its own stores.
Read labels add it up figure out how many calories you consume a day let's say you consume 3000 calories/day and weigh 300 lbs.
Week one cut that down to 2500 what happened gain/lose/constant? Gained 302
Week two cut that down to 2200 what happened gain/lose/constant? Gained 303
Week two cut that down to 2000 what happened gain/lose/constant? Constant 303
Week two cut that down to 1800 what happened gain/lose/constant? Lost 302
So now you have a baseline for where you are in terms of intake. If you're not losing weight fast enough cut calories(within reason) I've done a lot of personal experimentation on myself I've go
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've seen many suburbs with no sidewalks, no safe freeway crossings, and so forth. I am nearly always on foot or transit, and I have seen many dangerous areas, close calls and accidents because of no planning for pedestrian or bike traffic.
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:5, Interesting)
Life is good.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:5, Insightful)
Compare this to Australia and Europe, where there is as much urban sprawl as the worst parts of the US but every road has a sidewalk, every set of lights has a crosswalk, and foot bridges and tunnels are commonplace. This results in two things: getting in your car to go get milk and bread is considered lazy and, as a result, there's lots of small "corner stores" to get milk and bread almost everywhere people live. Kids walk to school, and/or catch public transport. And seeing as there are lots of people on the streets, street crime is virtually unheard of - it's a lot easier to mug someone if the only people nearby are in cars with their windows rolled up because they're afraid of street crime.
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:5, Insightful)
On a personal note, I gained a lot of weight after moving to the burbs. Living in NYC and walking up 3 flights of stairs kept me more active. Even in an elevator building, I did a lot of walking around with groceries.
Unfortunately in America, "sprawl" is a term that has been continuously co-opted, in many parts of America, to mean "let's have large lot sizes to retain our rural character" which of course *creates* sprawl. Other parts of the country, e.g. California, which have huge amounts of building purely residential developments on empty hills, have other problems. Namely, gated-community-type shit, which dictate all houses have to look alike and no commercial development. This demands that you drive a few miles to a strip mall just to buy milk.
Americans need to rethink development in a very serious way.
Re: (Score:2)
I moved to one of two areas in my medium sized American town with any sort of shopping within walking distance (grocery, a few cafes, various other shops). It isn't looked upon as being the "nicest" neighboorhood, but it's pretty nice, and I love being within walking distance of "stuff". I've actually been made fun of for choosing that neighboorhood and for taking my own grocery bag to the store and carrying my groceries home... Maybe it's a little jealousy, but I don't quite get it.
The rest of town is
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:5, Insightful)
drive everywhere and never carry anything exposes you
to far more ridicule than carrying a bag around does.
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:5, Interesting)
The irony is that it's the same snobs who brought us sprawling gated communities that are pushing the move to more walkable residential areas.
Master planning vs mixed and public spaces (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
Not so here (Score:2)
I technically live in an ex-burb (cringe) and they haven't finished building all the paths, but there are a few places I can get to mostly on bike trails, and within a few years we'll be connected to one of the main trail networks so i'll be able to travel to locations around 15 miles away rarely crossing any roads. A fair number of the new roads have bike lanes.
I can think of a few pedestrian bridges ove
Re:Not so here (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not so here (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridge City Council try to promote cycling by penalising cars without doing any effort whatsoever to award cycling and pedestrians. The pedestrian zone in mid-town is laughable in its size and does n
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The town where I grew up in the Peninsula area just south of San Francisco is a little of both. The lower area of the town, which is older, has a higher latino population, and more commercial/industrial zoning (though it is still essentially a bedroom community), is fairly friendly to pedestrians in that there are sidewalks and crosswalks and things. That said, the town is a nightmare to traverse on foot. The grocer down the street was turned into a conveniance store, meaning to get non-ethnic groceries you
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, I noticed the article didn't even mention that the typical suburb probably doesn't _have_ sidewalks. If you're walking, you're the weird guy out walking in the street. And that has to cause social pressure not to be that person doing it in your neighborhood.
It's even dangerous in snow country where you might not have an unplowed shoulder to walk on and you really would be out with the cars. Probably the closest I've come to dying outside a crosswalk was walking across an overpass where the snowplow
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I know
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I have an even better idea: instead of gas, we can use biodiesel, made from animal fats provided by those liposuction clinics!
It's not always that simple (Score:3, Interesting)
2. Teenagers and kids pick the bad habbits of their parents, and are fed by their fat parents, so it's not exactly that independent.
E.g., I can tell you that both me and my brother got to eat a lot of fat and sugar as kids, because that'
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've lived in Kansas and North Carolina so far. The cities I've lived in have been the 'suburbs' of a much larger city (Lawrence, Overland Park in KS out side of KC and Wake Forest outside of Raleigh in NC) and the nearest thing to my house besides another home is > 2 miles away at a minimum.
I mean grocery store, whatever kind of thing. Gas, anything.
However, I get to travel a lot. I've found that when I'm in
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you for your insight.
However, I also gave a reason as well as noting the correlation: Less walking opportunities = less energy expenditure = more stored energy
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, I'm not thinking that at all. You're thinking I'm American, but I'm not.
Compare say the sprawled Australian city of Sydney and the non-sprawled European city of Amsterdam. Both are pedestrian friendly and people would not be afraid to walk in either.
In Sydney, the majority of people drive to work, drive to the Supermarket once a week, drive to their local shopping center for entertainment, etc. In Amsterdam however, there is much less sprawl and much better public transport. People are forced to walk to the tram/train before going to work, entertainment, etc.
Have you ever lived in a non-sprawled city? I've lived in both and believe me, it's not about pedestrian unfriendliness, but about easy accessability to work / entertainment / shops (beyond your local expensive milk-bar) / schools / etc by pedestrians.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not the person you're responding to, but I've lived in Sydney without a car as well, I never found it a hassle. Actually it seemed liberating when I heard the tales of some of the car owners.
When I lived in the CBD (George St, next to Hoyt's, $80pw for a three bedroom rooftop flat if that helps you date it, alas the building is gone now) it was of course very easy. Woolies across the road and great train/bus connections at Town Hall. The office was a 2 minute walk.
But also, way out in Randwick, where the only tall building in sight was the UNSW library off in the distance, it was easy. Again, ample bus service (buses to town every 10 minutes most of the time), multiple supermarkets within reasonable walking distance.
There is really nothing greater than going to work under your own power every morning. It's incredibly relaxing, it's "free" exercise (no trip to the gym or special efforts), and it's often faster than driving (particularly if you're cycling). You also save heaps of money.
Cycling to work (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the big reasons things are so spread apart down here is that the area is full of parks and greenways. One of the big characteristics of 'sprawled' areas is houses with yards (meaning a place for kids to exercise). And despite the artificial barriers between residential and commercial sections of town, there is usually going to be something within walking distance. There are plenty of walking opportunities in 'sprawled' areas, if some people don't make use of them thats a result of their lifestyle,
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Note to moderators: it's insightful the first time, it's redundant the millionth time.
Re:Sprawl DOES makes you fatter (Score:4, Funny)
I, for one, welcome our redundant overlords!
(Pls don't mark me as foe, I'm just testing your theory.)
Yes and no and yes and no (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Yes and no and yes and no (Score:5, Insightful)
Obesity in suburbanites is just an additional reason why sprawl is bad, not the reason.
In short: put up tolls heavy enough to clear congestion. This creates the financial incentives necessary for market-driven mass transit
Market driven mass transit has been successful nowhere. Transport infrastucture is (or should be) a government problem.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
And market pricing of road use appropriate for peak hours has been tried nowhere. (I know, I know. "LA has $20 for tolls in
Transport infrastucture is (or should be) a government problem.
In some places, it has to be. But it should certainly involve as much entrepreneurialism as possible. The infrastructure for e.g. a train will have to require government somewhere,
Re:Yes and no and yes and no (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not necessarily true. Before WWII, there was quite a lot of successful privately run and funded mass transit. The Key System [wikipedia.org] in the Bay Area comes to mind. Unfortunately, at this point it's financially infeasible for any private company to make the investments in infrastructure necessary to run a profitable system like this.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The Transportation Bureau of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TBTMG) is (according to their website) both operated by the government AND in financial difficulties:
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why? The original post said: "Market driven mass transit has been successful nowhere", it didn't limit that to car-oriented U.S. cities. I think Tokyo's a great example of how private companies can succeed handily at mass-transit given the right environment and good management.
a community can only support one primary mode of transportation. If most people drive to work then the road infrastructure will be pretty decent and public transportation horrible. If few people own cars i
Re: (Score:2)
>>NO, it does not "cause" it
That's about as disingenious as saying that cigarettes don't kill people, it's the smoking that does. It might be technically true, but there's certainly a facilitation that's occuring.
Fat, yes. (Score:2)
I know some very intelligent, down-to-earth city folk, but I swear most of them live just outside the realm of reality.
the future is now (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, well, not all of us were able to get into Costco law school like you and your elite friends.
Only two words needed to fix obesity. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I eat 1 burrito for breakfast, not huge, but small, low grease - chicken no beef, cheese and some garlic on a spinache tortilla.
For lunch I drink a bottle of mineral water and a V8.
For dinner I have a noodle bowl.
My weight is maintained and slowly losing. I walk quite a bit every day at work, and go out of my way to walk extra, lift weights and do some exercise. At this weight I'm stronger, more agile, and have better endurance than many of my coworkers who are obviously in a better height/weig
Re:Only two words needed to fix obesity. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
what? (Score:2)
Ah, a positive correlation between urban sprawl and gluteal sprawl. I wonder what the formula for that would look like.
Short and sweet.. YES.. cars = fat. (Score:2, Insightful)
you use cars and you move less with your body.. you get fat..
one solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sprawl? No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sprawl? No. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Obvious (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How could teenagers who don't get a choice in where they live, have higher rates of obesity than those in the city? Ea
Re:Obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
I am intrigued by your recipe and would like to subscribe to your cookbook.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
We're missing the obvious. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't walk either (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Yes indeed it does, (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
I certainly agree that civic design (proper sidewalks, running trails, bike lanes, etc.) is an important and inexpensive part of any city. I also agree that Houston is a huge city, by any standard. However, it is not the ideal example of urban sprawl, as Houston basically just encompasses what would be s
Totally unscientific evidence of a corelation. (Score:2)
1) I am currently in grad school in rural Indiana. Prior to that I was in undergrad in downtown Chicago. While I live about the same distance from school here as I did in Chicago, I cannot walk here. My fiance and familly have all taken the time to not just how much weight I've put on in just a year. Still eating about the same.. never went out of my way to exercise in Chicago.. but there you
Re: (Score:2)
Does urban sprawl even exist? (Score:2)
Simple (Score:2)
It's not rocket science: "Oh, God. We think there is a real pattern here. When people live within walking distance of interesting p
Four words to weight loss: (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, 'Stop buying cigarettes' is only three words. 'Stop using tobacco'.
I'm about 20 pounds over my 'ideal' weight. However, to try to get there requires restricting my diet to an extreme point and results in my body doing the whole slowdown thing to make it even harder and me feel like crud.
Hopefully they'll come up with a pill to fix that someday.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
No offense, but maybe you'd sound less self-righteous if you started talking after you lost the weight. Until then, it kinda sounds like you literally don't know what you're talking about.
Re:Four words to weight loss: (Score:5, Insightful)
So, yes, eating less and exercising more is how you lose weight. It's just that that's often a lot easier in the city than the suburbs.
Oh for crying out loud! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Exercise is far more important than diet. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Does living in a small town make one fat? (Score:2)
Christopher Alexander (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry. I got snotty ther efor a moment. One of the points of his books is that modern bureaucracy specifies building codes that demand the end results this study sees. It's been out there for decades at this point. How sad.
Who cares. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do we need to do a study on this though? It's useless information. We know the basic gist of why people get fat. The human body wants to store energy in case of emergency and runs itself on the premise of conserving energy when energy intake gets low. Thus the only real way to keep a fit body is exertion and a decent intake of calories. Instead of worrying about ways to cause people to exert themselves more how about we spend our money on real solutions like fixing the human body so it doesn't have to operate in a prehistoric fashion.
Victoria Transit Policy Institute (Score:3, Interesting)
One site I check every few months is the Victoria Transit Policy Institure [vtpi.org]. They have a lot of resources on sustainable transportation policy. When I watched my previous employer start paying for additional parking spots for new employees, I looked to VTPI for information on parking cash out. Cash out is an incentive program to not drive - if it costs the company $30/month for a parking spot, cash out programs pay employees the savings from not providing a parking spot. This encourages people to bus and bike to work. In my case, the employer wasn't interested, one of many reasons I no longer work there, but that's another story.
When I read the title of this article, I immediately though of VTPI. There is actually a PDF cowritten by Lawrence Frank which is listed on the VTPI main page, which is available from Smart Growth BC. Lawrence Frank is mentioned in TFA, and several of his studies are linked at the bottom. The Smart Growth BC PDF did not appear to be in the list of links at the bottom of the TFA at Science News Online. The PDF is 52 pages long, and is titled Promoting Public Health Through Smart Growth [smartgrowth.bc.ca] (also an HTML version from Google cache [72.14.253.104] to avoid melting down Smart Growth BC's server). It's more about how to design your cities properly, to avoid the health issues cited in TFA. From the preface to the PDF:
I enjoy most of the information on the VTPI site, but then again, for me, they're mostly preaching to the converted. I'd rather relax and read on the bus for an hour, or enjoy a 1 hour bike ride to work than fight rush hour traffic in a car for a half hour.If there's any correlation its lack of exercise (Score:3, Interesting)
But more than anything, people have to stop driving all over the place. One has to do with sheer laziness. Something the kids learn. I should feel safe walking on the streets (a question of coverage of sidewalks and not havng to cross major thorough fares with crazy drivers trying to run me over.
The big thing, IMO from stopping the laziness: big box stores. And its where a lot of people shop. In most of the communities I've observed in Ontario, Quebec, and NE U.S., the bix box stores tend to be at the outermost edges of the suburban areas. No easily accessible side walks, public transit. Its all poor city planing.
As an example, this summer, I decided I was going to go to shop at a big box store. The store is no more than 15 minutes each way walk. At least figuratively when you take the main road and drive over. But it was a nice day. So I walk for 10 minutes. I figure a shortcut/pathway I could take would surely lead to the store. Nope, city didn't build em. So I ended up taking the only way there. detour. Took an extra 10 minutes each way. Yeah, I drive now.
No wonder people don't walk! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Does sprawl make us fat? It depends... (Score:5, Funny)
I guess it depends on how much sprawl you eat.
A better question: If part of my body sprawls, am I fat?
I blame zoning laws (Score:5, Insightful)
It's simply against the law.
Land of the free, my ass.
Laziness Makes the US Fat! (Score:3, Insightful)
If you do live in a community that lacks parks, trails, or sidewalks/roads you can safely jog on, you don't even need a stairmaster or stationary bike to stay fit. All you need is the discipline to do basic resistance exercises every day. Just a quick intense workout when you wake up in the morning, and you will find it hard to get fat. Pushups, situps/crunches, dips, squats, etc. without weights but done in an explosive fashion will burn a lot of calories very fast and keep your muscles toned as well. You don't need to run 10 miles or do aerobics for an hour to burn a lot of calories if you are know that anaerobic exercise is about 8 times less efficient in calorie usage as aerobic exercise. What this essentially means is that anaerobic exercise will burn calories 8 times faster than aerobic exercise.
Of course, you could just lift weights for 10-15 minutes a day like I do, but if you don't have the space or the money to afford free weights, do the next best thing and do the basics to keep fit. It doesn't take a lot of time, just the discipline to make it part of your daily routine as if it was as core to your day as brushing your teeth.
Venice (Score:4, Interesting)
Fear makes us fat (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
In the city you can walk at least. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now look at small towns, where nothing is walking distance, and there are no sidewalks. You are forced to drive your car and you will move a lot less naturally, unless you go on a hike on the weekend or go to the gym. In cities many choose alternative transport, such as bicycles, while on highways you are not even allowed to ride a bike.
But no walking.
I moved out of the city, where I used to walk 5+ km a day, just commuting. Now I am a car potato, or ride a motorbike when weather allows and no formal dressing is required.
Other thing: I seem to see a lot more fat people in small towns and the countryside, and right now visiting the US it seems the same here.
Well just my 2c, I moved a lot more on foot/bicycle when I lived in the big city.
Re:Being fat versus getting jacked at gunpoint... (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sort of . . . School integration in the cities forced* white folks to relocate to the suburbs, taking their money with them. Now the good public schools are in the suburbs. Live in the city, and you send your kids to private s
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This hoary old tale is quickly being put to rest in most major cities I've personally been to (Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, San Fra
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not necessarily; your basal metabolic rate (BMR) depends on your age, sex, weight, etc. and for a lot of people, a BMR of 2000 kcal a day is on the high side. Calculate your BMR here [exrx.net].