There goes the neighborhood
walking, obesity
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Do you live in a neighborhood that was built before 1950? If so, you run less risk of being overweight, according to a study reported recently on MSNBC.
That's because older residential areas were built before the automobile took over the country, and homes were usually built within walking distance of stores, schools, railroad stations and other places you needed to go. After 1950, with suburban sprawl, subdivisions were built so far away from any of these amenities that you had to drive everywhere.
According to the study, men who live in newer neighborhoods weigh an average of 10 pounds more than those who live in older neighborhoods.
I grew up in a smug, affluent Connecticut suburb that was zoned entirely residential, except for a tiny commercial strip along the border of the city where everyone worked. There was no downtown to speak of. The nearest store was two miles away, and the city fathers were doing everything in their power to put that store out of business and have the property revert to residential use.
I now live in an older New Jersey suburb which is less affluent, but as far as I'm concerned it's a far better place to live. I can walk to church, the hardware store, a pizza parlor and several other restaurants, the railroad station and a package store, among other places. My son was able to walk to school.
It's ironic that so many parents move to the outlying suburbs "for the children." When they move to places where the kids have to be driven everywhere, they're not doing them any favors. Not only do kids get more exercise when they can walk places, they become more self-reliant.
The MSNBC story contains a link to a website called Walk Score, where you can enter your address and find your neighborhood's "walkability score," based on its distance from stores, schools and other facilities. I was su... read entire entry
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on 8/10/2008
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5.4
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It just keeps getting worse
obesity, diet, exercise, hiking, bicycling
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Obesity rates just keep rising in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control have announced.
According to the Centers' weekly morbidity and mortality report, more than a quarter of Americans admitted to being obese in a 2007 survey. That represented an increase of 1.6 percentage points since the last survey in 2005.
Even worse, in some southern states, the obesity rate was as high as 30 percent. It seems that southern cooking with its emphasis on fried foods is really taking its toll.
At the other end of the spectrum, Coloradans can pat themselves on the back for perennially having the lowest obesity rate, 19 percent. Evidently with all that gorgeous Rocky Mountain scenery to hike through and lots of bike trails, people in Colorado are motivated to get off their butts and exercise.
Let's hope that the rising cost of gas will have a bright side: Maybe people will have an incentive to leave the car home and walk or ride their bicycles more. Dare we hope?
Here's a link to the CDC report:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5728a1.htm
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on 7/18/2008
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3.6
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