SPRAWLING CITIES, SPRAWLING WAISTLINES (Short Version)

Urban planners and fitness experts are beginning to compare notes about how suburban development affects health. They’re finding that urban sprawl discourages exercise such as biking and walking. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Urban planners and fitness experts are beginning to compare notes about how suburban
development affects health. They’re finding that urban sprawl discourages exercise
such as
biking and walking. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Not nearly as many kids ride their bikes to school today as kids did a generation
ago. That’s
because sprawling areas – complete with four lane roads – are designed for cars. not
for bikes.


Risa Wilkerson is with the Michigan Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness, Health
and Sports.
She says fitness experts say there are advantages to building neighborhoods more
friendly to
bicyclists and pedestrians.


“Carpooling your child everywhere you go is a hard life to have if your child could
walk to their
soccer game while the other child walks to piano practice and you stay home and
start to cook a
healthy dinner or you have a chance to go ride your bike.”


The experts say the way neighborhoods are designed now could be contributing to health
problems in kids such as obesity, the early onset of diabetes, and asthma that might
be aggravated
by auto emissions.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.