Sprawling Suburbia's Weight Problem

A new study is the first to correlate density and health on a national scale and finds that people living in spread out suburbs are more likely to be overweight.

1 minute read

August 29, 2003, 9:00 AM PDT

By Abhijeet Chavan @http://twitter.com/legalaidtech

"In the first comprehensive examination of whether suburbs spreading across the U.S. landscape are affecting Americans' health, the researchers studied more than 200,000 people in 448 counties, producing the first concrete evidence supporting suspicions that sprawl is aggravating the nation's growing weight crisis. People who live in the most spread-out areas spend fewer minutes each month walking and weigh about six pounds more on average than those who live in the most densely populated places. Probably as a result, they are almost as prone to high blood pressure as cigarette smokers, the researchers found."

Thanks to Emily Rothchild

FULL STORY: Suburbia USA: Fat of the Land?

Thursday, August 28, 2003 in The Washington Post

Land Use United States

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