Hazel Borys makes the connection between health and urban design in Better! Cities and Towns:
… we often talk about how they are “transit repellent” and very challenging places to add bus or rail stops because of the lack of a street network and connectivity. Not coincidentally, these same places find themselves “active lifestyle repellent” as well, offering up neither the safety nor the connections nor the interaction with other people that draws us out to run and walk and bike.
“The trouble is that in the last half century, we have effectively engineered physical activity out of our daily lives. Health is determined by planning, architecture, transportation, housing, energy, and other disciplines at least as much as it is by medical care. …
The modern America of obesity, inactivity, depression, and loss of community has not ‘happened’ to us; rather we legislated, subsidized, and planned it.” And that strong statement is according to three doctors, Andrew Dannenberg, Howard Frumkin, and Richard Jackson in their book, Making Healthy Places.
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This seems like a good opportunity to post some images from Las Vegas that make the above point visually:
I’m not sure what conclusions to draw from those photos, to be honest. An escalator with two thin people riding on it, next to a set of stairs – perhaps that grey-haired gent prefers the escalator because of aching joints, or one of the many other invisible mobility difficulties that make escalators – alongside stairs – an inclusive choice. A fat woman walking down the sidewalk with a friend – are we supposed to sneer at her presence as a fat person in Vegas at all, or cheer because she is going for a walk? An athletic looking fellow looking at an ad for lean steak, asparagus and red wine, which sounds downright ascetic for a strip hotel offering.
Probably a chicken and egg question, but the obese woman in the 2nd pic looks to be an example of why you need the escalator in the 1st pic.
The 3rd pic could be from a fitness magazine.
Last pic? That’s just branding and marketing. I think there’s a store called “Men’s Essentials” that sells cologne and shaving supplies…
FWIW, i suspect the obesity epidemic in developed nations is from ++access to food.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/science/a-mathematical-challenge-to-obesity.html?_r=0
And the pic of the short escalator is shooting fish in a barrel. Some people (like seniors) benefit from the escalators.
And people who are morbidly obese would also benefit from escalaotrs. But are they less deserving than say, a non-obese senior? I would agree with Brooke – this is a slippery slope to look at obese people with more scorn….
If anything, constrast the quote above:
“The trouble is that in the last half century, we have effectively engineered physical activity out of our daily lives.”
…versus issues with compliance issues that govt and business have to follow in the USA following the appproval of the americans with disability act.
“”It was a catalyst that ended permissible exclusions,” says Jonathan Young, chairman of the National Council on Disability and a former White House liaison and counsel on disability policy initiatives. “It set a new level of expectation that people with disabilities ought to be integrated into society.””
In a sense, it is clear that the USA has engineering physcal activity out of an element of public society for a defined “good”, if integration of those with mobility problems is defined as good.
http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/08/how-to-comply-with-the-americans-with-disabilities-act.html
with freedom comes responsibility…