Year 2, Day 62: April Come She Will

WEIGHTY ISSUE—Obesity-suburbs link debated
Any way you study it, commute takes away time for healthy activity
By RAD SALLEE - Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Does suburban living make you fat? Probably a little bit, studies say. At least for some people.

It's common sense that a person who spends an hour or more of every workday commuting to and from the job will have that much less time left over for healthful pursuits.

A city dweller who can walk or bike to work, as well as to the cleaners, the grocery and so on, obviously would have the edge on fitness, other things being equal.

But they seldom are equal, and there's abundant evidence that obesity is strongly related to other factors, including income, education and race.

A small academic tempest followed news reports in February of a study from the University of Illinois at Chicago that seemed to refute a link between urban sprawl and personal spread.

One story about the report was headlined "Study finds suburbanites fitter.

Breakfast
2 Eggs, Over Easy
2.5 Strips Turkey Bacon
2.5 oz. 50% Jalapeno Cheddar
Tea

Snack
Coffee with USM
1 crust of bread
1 quarter-square of matzoh
~4 oz almonds/cashews
1 or 2 bites of Magnolia's Cheese Stick (Ruby saved me by throwing it away)
1 chicken nugget
3 slices salami

Lunch
Breast of Chicken
Salad with Spinach, Cabbage, Feta

Dinner
Flank Steak with Ginger and Scallions
Salad with Japanese Ginger Dressing
Broccoli

Typical differences

Ewing's 2003 study examined 448 counties in 83 metro areas and concluded that sprawl had a small but significant connection with minutes walked, obesity, high blood pressure and body mass index (BMI), a calculation based on height and weight.

At the extremes, the study estimated, New Yorkers would weigh 6.3 pounds less than residents of Geauga County, Ohio, a distant suburb of Cleveland, after correction for height and other factors. Typical differences were much smaller.

On a smaller but far more detailed scale, Frank polled 11,000 Atlanta-area residents in 2004 and concluded that those living in mixed-use neighborhoods with walkable destinations within a kilometer of their homes were likely to be thinner. Among white men, where the linkage was strongest, Frank concluded that extreme differences in land use, population density and street connectivity correlated with weight differences of up to 10 pounds.

The recent Chicago study fell between those two geographically, but the data source was voluminous — records of 7 million drivers' licenses in the 10-county Chicago area. Body mass index was calculated from licensees' height and weight. Researchers also noted the subjects' gender and place of residence among 375 ZIP codes.
Maps were generated that show residents of the inner city and outer suburbs carrying more excess weight than those in the inner ring of suburbs