City Life is Making us Fat
Driving to work, the supermarket and your children's school isn't just hurting the environment, new research claims: it's making you fat. Modern cities are centred around the car. According to Tim Townsend, director of planning and urban design at Newcastle University, that approach to urban planning is beginning to show in our waistlines.
Source: The Journal Friday 30 July, 2010
How the Weighty Issue of City Life is Making us Fatter
In a book co-edited by Tim Townsend and Amelia Lake (senior lecturer in food an nutrition at Northumbria University) they say urban designers have a responsibilty to tackle the rising levenls of obesity. Shopping malls and fast food restaurants, escalators and huge car parks with people battling to get the space closest to the doors so they don't have to walk very far.
These environments are simply not designed for people to walk in. Health needs to be back on the town planning agenda before it is too late. Tim Townsend argues our built environment and how it prevents us from taking healthy lifestyle choices is now recognised as an area we know too little about.
The researchers suggest this important issue reflects many of the things already being talked about in terms of sustainability, such as reducing car use and being more active through cycling and walking.
August 1, 2010
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