How Important Are Sidewalks to Public Health?
As a personal trainer in the Oklahoma City and Edmond area, I see a lot of obese people. I can't help but think changes to our city environment we live in could really be positive on how our citizens live. I'm talking about sidewalks today. There are other things we could talk about, but I think this one has been totally missed by our city leaders. Sidewalks can really open the city up to people so they can forgo their cars and walk or ride their bikes to local attractions. Memo to City Leaders: Do more to change the environment. The Thunder are great, but do something that directly impacts citizen health.
If you remove the bad food from the house you are less likely to eat bad. That's changing the environment.
The neighborhood I grew up in as a kid was an older neighborhood that had sidewalks. You could ride your bike to your friends house without ever touching the street. There was the occasional car blocking your path that you might need to navigate around. The sidewalk also led to our local elementary school and a park located in the neighborhood. It was not uncommon to see kids riding their bikes or people walking their dogs on the sidewalk. I remember those sidewalks as if they were real streets when I was younger. I remember walking to school and even remember special bumps you could attempt to bunny hop your bicycle over. The local park was the gathering point for all the neighborhood kids and all sidewalks led directly to it.
The neighborhood I live in now is newer and has no sidewalks at all. However, it does include a public park. To get to you have to walk or ride your bike in the street. I guess you could even drive to it if you wanted. There is no elementary school in the newer neighborhood either. Furthermore, you rarely see kids outside or ever at the park.
I remember my childhood as being very active and playing outside, walking to school, riding my bike to my friends... almost all of which involved the sidewalk to some degree. I would hear my friends parents and even my mom start hollering for us around dinner time or near dark to come home. There were no cell phones, just the yell. My son has an entirely different World. No sidewalks, dangerous streets to ride his bike in, and tons more crazy people so parents won't even let their kids play outside much. And my son has a cell phone too, just in case I let him ride around the block by himself.
Nowadays, you take your life in to your hands if you walk or ride your bike in the street. People driving while texting or talking on their cell phones are your biggest threat. Recent studies even suggest that people that text and drive are several times more dangerous than a drunk driver. That's hard to believe but makes sense when you think that a person texting is not looking where they are going and their mind in is LOL land or texting something as important as "k".
I know three people who have been hit by people driving and playing on their phones. Dangerous.
The folks at Car and Driver Magazine have now documented just dangerous it can be.
Rigging a car with a red light to alert drivers when to brake, the magazine tested how long it takes to hit the brake when sober, when legally drunk at .08, when reading an e-mail, and when sending a text. The results are scary. Driving 70 miles per hour on a deserted air strip Car and Driver editor Eddie Alterman was slower and slower reacting and braking when e-mailing and texting.
The results:
Unimpaired: .54 seconds to brake
Legally drunk: add 4 feet
Reading e-mail: add 36 feet
Sending a text: add 70 feet
Forget the fact that riding your bike in the street is a dangerous undertaking today (and being ran over can be considered unhealthy)- what impact do sidewalks have on health? The city that I live in, Oklahoma City made the top of Forbes [http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/21/fittest-cities-washington-lifestyle-health-exercise-obesity.html] list as the most unhealthy city. They base their findings on the amount of parks, fitness facilities, mortality rates, disease rates and on and on. I can't help but think some of this has to do with how the city has been planned. You can't go anywhere in Oklahoma City unless you own a car - it's enormous in terms of area. You can't even go to the local grocery store without using a car, no sidewalks. Ice Cream shop? No sidewalk.
So I'm blaming our city forefathers and current city leaders for part of our unhealthiness. Change the building codes to make sidewalks MANDATORY on any new developments. Plan to build even more and more sidewalks than MAPS asks for from neighborhoods to places people want to go like parks, schools, libraries, grocery stores, etc..
Some of the bike paths in Oklahoma City (Lake Hefner and Bluff Creek) are fantastic, except most people have to drive their cars to the paths to use them. More people might ride bikes if their neighborhoods and the city had more sidewalks that were usable.
So pony up Mayor Mick, and do more, your diet was a failure - OKC is rated the unhealthiest City in the United States. Please don't pave any sidewalks to Taco Bell though and stop telling people to eat Taco Bell with your cut outs and keep them out of Taco Bell altogether. While you are at it, make talking or texting on the phone while driving a traffic offense might help make the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians until you build more of those sidewalks for your citizens.
Change the environment and change the city from unhealthiest to healthiest. It can be done, but not without giving our citizens better chances - build MORE sidewalks.
Christian Henning, NASM-CPT
Christian Henning, NASM-CPT
If you remove the bad food from the house you are less likely to eat bad. That's changing the environment.
The neighborhood I grew up in as a kid was an older neighborhood that had sidewalks. You could ride your bike to your friends house without ever touching the street. There was the occasional car blocking your path that you might need to navigate around. The sidewalk also led to our local elementary school and a park located in the neighborhood. It was not uncommon to see kids riding their bikes or people walking their dogs on the sidewalk. I remember those sidewalks as if they were real streets when I was younger. I remember walking to school and even remember special bumps you could attempt to bunny hop your bicycle over. The local park was the gathering point for all the neighborhood kids and all sidewalks led directly to it.
The neighborhood I live in now is newer and has no sidewalks at all. However, it does include a public park. To get to you have to walk or ride your bike in the street. I guess you could even drive to it if you wanted. There is no elementary school in the newer neighborhood either. Furthermore, you rarely see kids outside or ever at the park.
I remember my childhood as being very active and playing outside, walking to school, riding my bike to my friends... almost all of which involved the sidewalk to some degree. I would hear my friends parents and even my mom start hollering for us around dinner time or near dark to come home. There were no cell phones, just the yell. My son has an entirely different World. No sidewalks, dangerous streets to ride his bike in, and tons more crazy people so parents won't even let their kids play outside much. And my son has a cell phone too, just in case I let him ride around the block by himself.
Nowadays, you take your life in to your hands if you walk or ride your bike in the street. People driving while texting or talking on their cell phones are your biggest threat. Recent studies even suggest that people that text and drive are several times more dangerous than a drunk driver. That's hard to believe but makes sense when you think that a person texting is not looking where they are going and their mind in is LOL land or texting something as important as "k".
I know three people who have been hit by people driving and playing on their phones. Dangerous.
The folks at Car and Driver Magazine have now documented just dangerous it can be.
Rigging a car with a red light to alert drivers when to brake, the magazine tested how long it takes to hit the brake when sober, when legally drunk at .08, when reading an e-mail, and when sending a text. The results are scary. Driving 70 miles per hour on a deserted air strip Car and Driver editor Eddie Alterman was slower and slower reacting and braking when e-mailing and texting.
The results:
Unimpaired: .54 seconds to brake
Legally drunk: add 4 feet
Reading e-mail: add 36 feet
Sending a text: add 70 feet
Forget the fact that riding your bike in the street is a dangerous undertaking today (and being ran over can be considered unhealthy)- what impact do sidewalks have on health? The city that I live in, Oklahoma City made the top of Forbes [http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/21/fittest-cities-washington-lifestyle-health-exercise-obesity.html] list as the most unhealthy city. They base their findings on the amount of parks, fitness facilities, mortality rates, disease rates and on and on. I can't help but think some of this has to do with how the city has been planned. You can't go anywhere in Oklahoma City unless you own a car - it's enormous in terms of area. You can't even go to the local grocery store without using a car, no sidewalks. Ice Cream shop? No sidewalk.
So I'm blaming our city forefathers and current city leaders for part of our unhealthiness. Change the building codes to make sidewalks MANDATORY on any new developments. Plan to build even more and more sidewalks than MAPS asks for from neighborhoods to places people want to go like parks, schools, libraries, grocery stores, etc..
Some of the bike paths in Oklahoma City (Lake Hefner and Bluff Creek) are fantastic, except most people have to drive their cars to the paths to use them. More people might ride bikes if their neighborhoods and the city had more sidewalks that were usable.
So pony up Mayor Mick, and do more, your diet was a failure - OKC is rated the unhealthiest City in the United States. Please don't pave any sidewalks to Taco Bell though and stop telling people to eat Taco Bell with your cut outs and keep them out of Taco Bell altogether. While you are at it, make talking or texting on the phone while driving a traffic offense might help make the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians until you build more of those sidewalks for your citizens.
Change the environment and change the city from unhealthiest to healthiest. It can be done, but not without giving our citizens better chances - build MORE sidewalks.
Christian Henning, NASM-CPT
Christian Henning, NASM-CPT
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