A new study shows that people who live in neighbourhoods where they can walk to grocery stores, schools and shops are less likely to be overweight or obese than those who live in places where the car is king.
Researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) found that people who lived in Ontario’s most walkable neighbourhoods weighed seven pounds less, on average, than people who lived in places where they depended on cars for almost all of their errands.
Those in the most car-dependent neighbourhoods were 70 per cent more likely to be obese than people living in what researchers classified as a “walker’s paradise.”
A neighbourhood’s walkability had a direct relationship with body mass index: the more walkable the neighbourhood, the better the weight status of the people who lived there, the study said.
“It suggests that even small improvements in walkability could actually benefit obesity rates,” said ICES staff scientist Maria Chiu, lead author of the study published Tuesday in Health Reports, a Statistics Canada journal.
Researchers examined Statistics Canada health survey data for 106,000 adults in Ontario and cross-referenced them to their postal codes, which tied them to specific neighbourhoods. Those neighbourhoods were grouped into five categories, ranging from “very car dependent” to “walker’s paradise,” based on their walkability as measured by Walk Score, a U.S.-based data service for home buyers and renters.
Walk Score can give individual addresses, neighbourhoods or whole cities a score out of 100 based on walking distances to amenities such as grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, stores, banks, parks, schools and entertainment centres.
Researchers designed a statistical model that eliminated other factors that could contribute to obesity, isolating the relationship between a neighbourhood’s walkability and the weight status of its residents.
Chiu said the study — the largest of its kind in Canada — found a “huge difference” in obesity rates between neighbourhoods at the opposite end of the walkability spectrum.
“These results provide strong suggestive evidence,” she said, “that there’s a link between neighbourhood walkability and obesity.”
It means, Chiu said, that city planners and policy makers must be aware that neighbourhoods have an impact on health. “We should encourage them to design neighbourhoods that are more pedestrian friendly so that it sets people up for success,” she said, “so that the healthier choice becomes the more convenient, enjoyable choice for everyone.”
Only 15 per cent of Canadian adults get enough exercise, she said, but that situation could be dramatically improved if everyone added 10 minutes of walking to their daily routines.
According to the Walk Score system, Ottawa ranks as Canada’s fifth most pedestrian-friendly city behind Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Mississauga. Ottawa scores 54 on the scale, which makes it “somewhat walkable”; the city’s urban core, however, is classified as a “walker’s paradise.”
In November 2013, the City of Ottawa published its pedestrian plan to recognize the “crucial role that walking plays in creating an attractive, accessible, livable, safe and healthy city.” The plan offers direction as to how the city can be transformed into a world-class pedestrian city.
The goal is to get more people to walk instead of climbing into their cars for short trips. City research suggests that 21 per cent of all personal trips made in Ottawa are shorter than two kilometres, yet only about 40 per cent of people choose to walk that distance.
Three years ago, the Ottawa Neighbourhood Study (ONS) produced a detailed measure of the city’s walkability that assesses each neighbourhood’s amenities, pedestrian infrastructure, safety and aesthetics.
University of Ottawa professor Michael Sawada, an expert in applied geomatics, is a member of the team that developed the walkability scale. Sawada said the ONS team developed its own scale because the Walk Score system didn’t do a good job of capturing walkability in rural areas, where amenities such as coffee shops, stores and banks are far away, but nearby forests, rivers and gardens make walking thoroughly pleasurable.
“In my neighbourhood, for instance, Convent Glen in Orleans, people are walking all the time but they’re not necessarily going anywhere: They’re out to enjoy the scenery and the fresh air,” he said.
David Hole, a retired social worker who serves as community liaison for the ONS, said many people are choosing where they live based on walkability. “It’s a major attraction to be able to walk to neighbourhood stores and walk to the community centre, to have your children walk to the neighbourhood school,” he said. “That can make a huge difference in terms of livability.”
University of Ottawa social scientist Elizabeth Kristjansson, a health measurement expert, said the relationship between walkability and obesity is not always consistent. “Although several studies have shown that more walkable neighbourhoods are connected with lower obesity, others have not,” she warned.
