Linking Town Planning and Obesity

Exercise, look away and it may be gone  

According to this months Sainsbury's magazine, around a third of all 0-15 year olds are either overweight or obese in the UK.  A shocking yet perhaps unsurprising statistic. 

Much talk is given over to how changing peoples eating habits is key to combating the obesity epidemic, while sales of weight loss DVDs and fad diet guides dominate the entertainment charts in the months after Christmas. 

This got me thinking, can town planning help in the battle of the bulge, especially to prevent kids getting fat at a young age? I think it can, here are some ideas, 

1) Professor Philip James, chairman of the international obesity task force warned in 2008 'Urban designers have created  Obesogenic environments by planning public spaces around the car (link), this dominance of the car has made it too dangerous for kids to play on the street and discouraged walking. The UK should therefore look at the Dutch home zones as a viable method of calming traffic through creating a shared pedestrian and vehicle space. 

This creates a safer and more pleasant environment for children and adults alike, and is all about the reclaiming the streets from vehicles, as the vehicles are forced to slow. 

2) Walkable nighbourhoods are also essential, according to Richard Jackson, a leading professor of public health in the US , walking to the shops, school  or work can help people keep off an average of 7 pounds (link). 

 3) Cycling should be encouraged as the norm; safe mini-cycle networks should be devised for all schools  avoiding main roads. While new developments should look at incorporating cycle storage spaces. 

4) Richard Jackson warned 'prescribing a minimum amount of physical activity is useless if there is nowhere to exercise (link) and in an age when more people than ever are living in urban environments, and with many people without gardens this is too true for far too many people living in the UK today. School playing fields are often the only areas of large open spaces in many communities, yet it is a sad fact that when the schools shut the playing fields are also often locked up, there is no need for this. If kids and teenagers have the space to play informal sports, they will. Lets protect playing fields for community use. 

Michael Donnelly at Planningblog offers an interesting but somewhat different perspective on the issue with this article .

Planning should be about creating environments that are pro-active to human use, the post war car boom years saw many urban areas re-modeled to accommodate the car, shopping in retail parks miles from anywhere became normal and cyclists and walkers became the minority. The culture of the west was changed, its about time we changed it back and reclaimed our streets and our cities for what they are for. 

The formation of the planning movement links back to the early 20th century health reform movement, yet the two, overtime have become detached, but the same fact remains ... healthy citizens equals a healthy economy.