DECLINING WALKABILITY: BIG ROLE IN CHINA'S OBESITY PROBLEM
-> According to a Nov.17th CityLab article, "In China's rapidly changing urban landscape, the Chinese middle class may be bearing the greatest burden when it comes to the connection between the way their cities are being built and rates of obesity, a new study suggests.
"A paper recently published in the journal Preventive Medicine (Walking, Obesity and Urban Design in Chinese Neighborhoods: <a href="http://bit.ly/1xmYmcW">http://bit.ly/1xmYmcW</a>;) examines the connections between obesity, income, and the built environment in two of China's major cities, Shanghai and Hangzhou. The research team is headed up by Mariela Alfonzo, an assistant research professor at the NYU School of Engineering and a Fulbright scholar who has spent years developing measures of walkability in the United States and is now expanding that work to China.
"Alfonzo and her colleagues found that, as in other countries, there is a link between neighborhood designtheir walkabilityand levels of physical activity among residents. They also found, however, that the relationship between income, obesity, and physical activity is not a linear one in China. There, the poorest and the most affluent were both less likely to be obese than the middle class..."
Source: <a href="http://bit.ly/1EYEg9n">http://bit.ly/1EYEg9n</a>;
from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.