Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Obesity

Liberating the Schoolyard

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 29, 2013 | 8 Comments

For a time, a few years back, my friends and I used to play pick-up soccer every Sunday at a high school in my neighborhood. As many as 30 people, mostly adults in their twenties and thirties, would show up for a match on a particularly nice day. New moms would bring their babies to […]

Celebrate Bike to Work Week, No Matter What You Weigh

By Tanya Snyder | May 13, 2013 | No Comments

Happy Bike to Work Week, everybody! It’s a great time to give a gentle nudge to someone who you think would benefit from biking. In that vein, personal trainer and fitness coach Stephanie Averkamp of San Diego posted this infographic to her personal health website. She says she especially hopes to convince overweight and obese people to […]

Study: Car Commuters Put on More Weight Than Active Commuters

By Angie Schmitt | Mar 20, 2013 | 28 Comments

Going to the gym may not be enough to keep off the pounds if you drive to work. That’s the result of a study published recently in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. According to an Australian research team, active commuting is an effective defense against gaining weight. Among a sample of 822 Australian adults […]

Study: Access to Light Rail Can Reduce Obesity Risk — If You Use It

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 26, 2012 | 3 Comments

Living near transit can help you stay trim and healthy. That’s the result of a study published last year in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. This study is a little old — it was published in August 2011 — but we just came across it in the Reconnecting America resource center and the results are too […]

Maps Show Striking Link Between Car Commuting and Obesity

By Angie Schmitt | Jan 17, 2012 | 20 Comments

Check out these two maps, the first showing obesity rates (by county) in the United States and the second showing the percentage of commuters who travel by car (via Planetizen). Researchers Anne Price and Ariel Godwin at Planetizen caution readers not to conflate correlation and causation. However, when comparing other economic and demographic characteristics (unemployment, […]