San Francisco Bike Blog

So says, Anne Lusk, a research fellow at Harvard School of Public Health, when talking about the new study inversely linking active transportation and obesity:

“What I found most exciting about this excellent research is the applicability,” she said. “The issue then becomes should we improve our transit, walking or bicycling opportunities simultaneously or should we focus on one of the three?”

Lusk said her first choice is bicycles _ and not just because of global warming, fluctuating gas prices or the economic downturn. When Dutch researchers asked people to match emotions with various forms of travel, she said, “The greatest emotion was joy for bicycling.”

Find a copy of the new study here (PDF). As for that Dutch study showing bicycling as the most enjoyable of the transport modes, I’m still trying to track that one down.

Check out the graph below that shows just how much cycling and walking other countries are doing compared to us (US to the left; Denmark and Netherlands to the right):

I agree with Anne Lusk that the question we need to be asking is, should we attempt to improve walking, cycling, and transit all equally, or should we give each a certain priority level?

I think I have the answer - we should prioritize according to the Green Transportation Hierarchy, as I showed here.

Interestingly, the study lumps ‘transit’ in with other forms of ‘active transportation’ - namely, walking and biking. This broad definition of ‘active transport’ is something that the newish Chicago Active Transportation Alliance has done, and I’m not sure I agree with that - but it is there to discuss. As the opening line of the study says:

Purpose: This study was designed to examine the relationship between active transportation (defined as the percentage of trips taken by walking, bicycling, and public transit) and obesity rates (BMI ≥ 30 kg · m−2) in different countries.

The following graph shows how walk+bike+transit trips, in increasing percentages, inversely correlate with obesity - which might suggest that it is appropriate to associate transit with ‘active transportation’:

One of the co-authors of the study is ‘The Bicycle Scholar’, Rutgers Professor, John Pucher.

The summary of the report reads as follows:

Walking and bicycling are much more common in European nations than in the United States, Canada, and Australia. The current study shows that there is an inverse association between active transportation and obesity rates in these countries. These results do not necessarily indicate a causal relationship. However, given the fact that physically active individuals gain less weight over time,²⁸ it is possible that active transportation is one of the factors responsible for international differences in obesity rates. Future research should analyze to what extent walking and cycling infrastructure improvements, combined with expanded public transit systems, actually increase travel and, thus, provide additional physical activity that would help reduce obesity rates.

A lot of this type of research seems ‘obvious,’ but I love it, and I want to continue to see more of it. When I’m running my mouth about whatever, I want to be able to point to this type of research to back up my ‘obvious’ observations. The possible caveats in any conclusions drawn from this study (i.e. ‘These results do not necessarily indicate a causal relationship.’) just lend serious studies like this that much more credibility. It’s a beautiful thing.

Bikes up! Cars down! 

…Got hold of that ‘joy’ slide - thanks, Anne! Using without permission for now - hope that’s OK. The slide comes from a presentation given by Hans Voerknecht, International Director of Fietsberaad, the Dutch Bicycle Council. It is, by itself, a pretty awesome slide - a pretty clear ‘win’ for bikes on every measure:

Anne teaches a class called “Bicycle Environments in the U.S. and the Netherlands/Denmark: case studies in the promotion of physical activity”.

…Obesity gene?

Leave comment (2)

[p.s. The Forums are open for participation.]