Solving the Public Health Crisis with Smarter City Planning

In the following speech from a recent New Schools Better Neighborhoods symposium, former California Health Officer Dr. Richard Jackson explains why the best cure is to design, plan, and build healthier cities, neighborhoods, and schools.

"We need to tax high-fructose corn syrup, at a penny a teaspoon. We’d raise $2 billion a year, and I wouldn't use one nickel of that on stomach-stapling surgery. I'd use it on safe routes to schools, on nutrition education for teachers, for school gardens, for play areas and physical education programs. I’d use it for prevention of this disorder; it's a life or death issue."

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"So let’s say you get your 10-year-old nephew and he lives about a mile to school, and he decides he's going to walk to school every day for a year. If he does that, he burns 52 calories; over a year, he burns 18,000 calories, which is about five pounds of body weight—just by walking to school... So what's good for our kids and their health and what’s good for their neighborhood, school, and our city, state, nation, and planet are all the same thing."