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eHealthy Living
eHealthy Living
Having Food Close to Home is Good for your Waist
Related to this project: Food4Health
Related to country: Canada

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A few days ago I posted a link about a study that revealed that the presence of drinking fountains in schools cut obesity rates considerably. Kids drink more water, they function better, and feel less hungry, which leads to less weight.

This to end the week we now have a study done in my old neck of the woods at the University of British Columbia showing that those who live more than a kilometre from a grocery store have higher rates of obesity than those who don't:

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009720.html

Why? Well, think about what you buy and how cumbersome fresh foods are to carry. They aren't so heavy as much as they are fragile -- but they are heavy. If you live far away, that means either driving (no exercise + carbon emissions) or taking transit (having your bags squished and your formerly firm tomatoes turn to sauce). The way to address this is to buy stuff that's easy to carry like processed foods, which are light and durably packed (thanks to all that packaging that goes into it).

So we get a double whammy here: people are obese and one of the sensible options for purchasing wind up to be those that are the least healthy and cause the most environmental damage.

It seems to me that we need to get some design folk into this conversation, because this is not just a problem of food, it's a problem of how we design our cities and towns. It's also another example of why we need to be thinking in systems if we are to move things ahead.

April 9, 2009 | 10:51 AM Comments  0 comments

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