Erik, doesn't adding the nutrition aspect negate the findings as far as the benefits of walking? I mean, wouldn't it be better to simply have the walkable area with a park nearby versus car-dependent location as determining factors? I mean, carrying this to the ridiculous, it would be like saying baseball players who walked a lot and also took steroids hit more home runs than baseball players who drove their cars all the time and took no steroids; thus, walking means you can hit more home runs. It just seems that the "other" aspect negates the impact of the former.
Via Streetsblog, there is a new study examining factors influencing childhood obesity. One of the things examined was built environment and neighborhood. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the study found a strong connection between the walkability
of child’s neighborhood and the likelihood of obesity:
Children who lived in walkable areas, with a child-friendly park nearby and access to healthy food had 59%
lower odds of being obese. Kids that lived in car-dependent neighbourhoods with more fast food outlets had the highest levels of obesity (16%, which is the US average). But only 8% of children were obese in walkable areas with access to more healthy food.