Public Servant Lifestyle

Increased post-War car use implicated in increasing UK obesity by new report.

A new report by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and Adrian Davis Associates has highlighted the extent to which car use is implicated in the increase in obesity as well as rising carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

The main points of the argument put forward in the new research are as follows:

Since the end of the Second World War, the continuous increase in car ownership has led to a dramatic decline in walking as a means of transport - muscle power gave way to
fossil power.

This report calculates that just by returning to the average distance walked by people in the UK without cars, the rising tide of obesity can be almost halted.

At the same time, a substantial share of individuals' contribution to national carbon
dioxide emissions could be avoided.

The report goes on to argue that this could and should be done through renewed
efforts to promote walking as transport. This would be vastly cheaper than dealing
with the consequences of the obesity epidemic and climate change.

Some key findings from the report:

40% of all journeys in the UK are under two miles in length – distances easily covered by up to 30 minutes of brisk walking. Nonetheless, 38% of these journeys are
currently by car.

If a typical British adult were to walk just an hour more per week - equivalent to the difference in walking between a typical driver and a non-driver - this would
counteract a weight increase of two stones over a decade, and a longer-term slide into
obesity.

This alone could make a major contribution to halting the trend of increasing obesity
across the UK.

The extra walking could displace at least eleven million tonnes of CO2 from cars –
amounting to 15.4% of the total emissions from passenger cars.

Lead author, Dr Adrian Davis commented: "...the substitution of car use for walking is a major contributor to the steep rise in obesity, as walking is the most obvious way for most people to burn calories. A small daily reduction in walking over a decade or more has a profound and damaging impact on body weight.”

Carolina Valsecchi from IEEP added that: “the twin crises of obesity and climate change are clearly interlinked through the switch from muscle power to engine power for transport. Concerted action is needed to reverse both these trends. Our research demonstrates that something as simple as walking short trips now made by car would be make an important contribution to tackling both obesity and climate change”.

The complete report: Unfit for Purpose: How Car Use Fuels Climate Change and Obesity by Adrian Davis, Carolina Valsecchi and Malcolm Fergusson is published by the
Institute for European Environmental Policy, London.

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