Studies Link Flab With Sprawl

""I'm 99 percent sure there's a relationship between how communities are designed and people's weight," said Georgia Tech professor Lawrence Frank, leader of a transportation-related study in Atlanta named Smartraq. "People who live in lower-density, suburban environments, all else being equal, have a tendency to be slightly heavier."Overall, Americans are getting fatter. In the last two decades, surveys in which adults were weighed by health technicians showed that the proportion of those who were overweight or obese jumped to 64 percent from 47 percent."