The Hollando Diet

With apologies to Patsy Cline, I have found some data that bear out my personal experience with walking and weight loss.

There is an interesting front-of-the-book piece (last item) in the September Atlantic about a correlation between sprawl and obesity. A new study shows that residents of more densely populated counties weigh less, on average, than those of more sparsely populated counties. In a graph not reproduced online, New York County has an average weight of 161 pounds for a 5′7″ adult. The City and County of San Francisco comes in a distant second at 164 pounds. But bringing up the rear (and doubtless a sizeable rear at that) is suburban Geauga County, Ohio, which sprawls out from Cleveland. The average Geaugan weighs just under 168 pounds, seven pounds more than his counterpart in the Big Apple.

According to The Atlantic, the study’s authors hypothesize, “Cities encourage walking and physical fitness … whereas suburban homes are so far from friends, stores, and workplaces that even the most health-conscious residents are forced off the sidewalk and behind the wheel.”

Here we have another arrow in the quiver of New Urbanism, a movement to which I am very much attracted.