How the weighty issue of city life is making us fatter
Jul 30 2010 by Nicola Juncar, The Journal
The way our towns and cities are designed is making people unhealthy and overweight, two North East academics have warned. NICOLA JUNCAR reports
Many of the examples in his book Obesogenic Environments: Complexities, Perceptions and Objective Measures, which he co-edited with Dr Lake, come from the USA and Australia, where there are more low-density car-orientated suburbs, which are a focus of concern in obesity research.
“Although we’re not as extreme as these countries we’re still making some of the same mistakes and some different ones too,” said Mr Townshend.
“We don’t tend to build very low-density suburbs but we do go for lots of houses without any local services and poor transport links which force people into their cars.” But he says it is possible to “build in” more active spaces into our towns and cities to avoid creating these environments.
Green spaces and street trees encourage more walking, whereas graffiti, litter and poorly-maintained areas deter pedestrians.
He said: “We need to provide more green spaces – how many new parks do we build?
“Obesity is the biggest social and health problem we face and it will take a holistic approach to create new, healthier neighbourhoods with health professionals working alongside planners, designers and policy makers.”
Dr Lake added: “Our research shows it is as much the responsibility of an urban designer as it is a nutritionist to reverse the obesity trend.
“The current situation is that the unhealthy option is the easy one. We need to reverse that and create environments where healthy food is the easier, affordable and most accessible option.”
The researchers suggest this important issue reflects many of the things already being talked about in terms of sustainability, such as reducing car use, creating local food networks and being more active through cycling and walking.
“In many ways it’s a win-win situation as we’re not talking about costly new ways of going about how we develop towns and cities in the future,” said Mr Townshend.
