Childhood obesity in America is planned. Whether or not it was originally intended, it is the direct result of 60-year-old planning practices still widely used today. American transportation planners, urban planners and agricultural planners make plans that take American children off the sidewalks and into cars, out of parks and onto the Internet, away from vegetables and toward processed foods full of corn and sugar. In order for moderate exercise and nutritional food to return to everyday American childhood, we need a change in plans.
40% of trips in the US are shorter than 2 miles, theoretically suitable for biking. 20% of all Americans, including 100% of American children under the age of 15, do not drive cars. However, only 1.2% of federal transportation dollars are spent on infrastructure for walking and biking. Not surprisingly, very few children have safe places to walk or bike. They need rides to school, rides to the park, rides to meet other friends, rides to go shopping, rides to go anywhere except the Internet. These rides are not necessarily part of modern life—rather, they are the logical result of conventional transportation and urban planning.
Narrowly defined missions for zoning regulations and school boards ensure that children’s daily lives are scattered across many rides in motorized vehicles. When children can walk or bicycle safely between their various daily destinations, they practice moderate daily exercise, finding their way and achieving goals. They develop a sense of independence, gradually and safely. In order to do this, they need nearby neighborhood schools, parks and shops; totally safe crossings at all intersections with motorized traffic; and bicycle paths safe for everyone ages 7 to 70. Large, homogeneous Euclidean Use-Zones and large, distant schools are antithetical to childhood health, because destinations are too far apart for kid-powered mobility. The benefits of small neighborhood schools for public health and for community safety and coherence, should be enhanced and recognized, to support school boards in keeping them open. Some specialized programs across multiple schools could occur in virtual online space. Other specialized programs could transport a few children occasionally over long distances, rather than transporting all children every day over long distances.
In terms of nutrition, U.S. agricultural subsidies make corn and sugar so inexpensive, that processed food manufacturers fill their products with corn- and sugar- based materials of low nutritional value. While I am grateful to farmers, and have nothing against agricultural subsidies, it seems to me that taxpayers’ money should support agricultural products with nutritional, social and ecological value. For instance, France subsidizes wine and cheese on small farms, rather than corn and sugar on large farms. I dream of agricultural subsidies based on monetized public health/ecosystem services: for organically grown vegetables, habitat restoration, and switchgrass fuel for obsolescent coal plants. In the meantime, a modest but healthy change in American agricultural policy would subsidize organically-grown soybeans for tofu rather than pesticide-grown corn for modified corn starch. Most corn goes into cows, and after the switch, most soybeans would still go into cows–but that’s another story. In Florida, a more dramatic switch would be to subsidize oranges instead of sugar.
In conclusion, childhood obesity can be addressed effectively by changing our plans. Without changing our plans, and without modifying our existing infrastructure that is based on obsolete plans, the epidemic of childhood obesity will just get bigger.
Tags: bicycle, bicycling, bike, bike path bike lane, bike trail, Childhood obesity, ecosystem services, Let’s Move, livable cities, michelle obama, neighborhood school, obesity epidemic, public health, smart growth, transportation planning, urban planning
