Kids Are Less Active Because of Urban Design

The way in which a city is built, and its streets regulated, is one of the main factors that determine whether children will use bicycles or walking to get to school, or just stick to the bus. Distance and safety concerns also score high positions on parents' lists, which may not allow their child to use alternative means of transportation each day. Researchers have now found a direct correlation between the reducing number of those who travel by bike and the increasing number of obese youngsters.

They say that this trend is not one that is happening by accident, and that changes in the way children are brought up and educated greatly contribute to this. Writing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Clare Hume, who is an expert from the Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research at the Deakin University, highlights the fact that the number of kids walking to school has dropped considerably in 16 years, from 37 percent in 1985 to 26 percent in 2001.

In addition, the number of those using bicycles to get to school has diminished to such an extent that they do not even constitute a statistically significant population. At the same time, however, while kids are becoming less and less active, they are also growing increasingly fatter, on account of their sedentary life styles and of the fact that they spend more time in front of the computer and less outside.

Walking or using bikes to get to school “makes an important contribution to children's overall physical activity. Therefore, programs that aim to increase active commuting throughout childhood and in adolescence may have a positive effect on children's accumulated physical activity,” Hume explains, as quoted by ABC. The study took place between 2004 and 2006 and focused on two groups, one made of kids younger than 14 at the beginning of the observations, and one with older children, beyond 14 years of age. “Although small, the observed increase in active commuting across the two years of the study might be attributable to age-related increases in independence and autonomy,” the expert concludes.