James Langton UK Telegraph
The mystery
as to why Americans have become the fattest people on the planet
has been uncovered by public health experts, who say that decades
of uncontrolled suburban sprawl conceived around the motor car
have left them unable to walk even if they wish to.
Such delicacies
as the stuffed crust pizza and triple bacon cheeseburger have
played their part, but the main culprit for the ever-expanding
American waistline seems to be the way modern suburbs are built.
Researchers for the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
are preparing to test the theory with a series of experiments
to find out how far Americans actually walk. In Atlanta, Georgia,
they plan to equip 800 people with satellite tracking devices
to follow their daily routine step by step.
The drift
to the suburbs has been one of the most significant trends in
population movement in the last 50 years. It has been accompanied
by a rise in vehicle ownership, so that many new homes come with
a three-car garage as standard. A tour of the suburban streets
surrounding any American city shows why. In many areas, the pavement
has been done away with entirely. Since the high street has been
increasingly replaced by the shopping mall, even the simplest
purchase now requires a drive of several miles.
According
to Dr Tom Schmid, a director of the Centres' Division of Nutrition
and Physical Activity: "Our world has got a lot easier to
live in. We sit in cars, we don't walk to the store on the corner
and we don't walk to the park." Doctors and health experts
have puzzled for some time as to just why so many Americans are
so fat. At least one in five is defined as obese - more than 30
per cent above their ideal weight.
Yet over-eating
does not seem to be the simple explanation. Most adults consume
only around 100 calories a day more than they did 20 years ago,
while the amount of fat in their diet has dropped from 42 per
cent to 34 per cent. The problem now seems to be a way of life
so sedentary that it involves little more than a few steps between
the home, driveway and office. In many areas it can be positively
hazardous to walk.
Few suburbs
now have sidewalks so the pedestrian is forced on to the road.
What is more, police and private security patrols view anyone
moving around on a suburban estate without a car as someone who
has either run out of petrol and in distress, or poor and up to
no good. One mother of three, Linda Koulakjian, complained to
the Washington Post last week that when she decided to take a
walk to burn off a few pounds, several neighbours stopped their
cars and asked if she needed help. Mrs Koulakjian admitted: "Frankly
I was embarrassed. I didn't want to walk any more after that."
An investigation
by the Georgia Institute of Technology into walking habits in
Seattle found a direct correlation between physical activity and
the year a house was built. Residents in streets built before
1947 walked or cycled at least three times every two days. Those
in more modern houses used cars almost exclusively.
The Atlanta
study, to begin in March, will look at 8,000 households in two
districts, one where the shops and houses are close together and
the other in an outer suburb. One in 10 of those taking part will
wear a tracking device so that researchers can monitor their activity.
What worries organisations such as the American Medical Association
about America's bulging waistline is that children seem to be
among the worst affected. The number of severely overweight children
has doubled in the last 20 years.
One of the
best ways for children to exercise, by walking to school, has
all but disappeared because over-protective parents fear that
they will be abducted by paedophiles or run over crossing the
road. The reality is that paedophiles murder only around 100 children
each year in the United States. By contrast, 1,772 children died
and 316,000 were injured in car crashes in 1998, the latest year
for which figures are available.
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