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| It's your choice |
-Donald Fagen
Getting Larger, But Not Wiser
A recent article in a bicycle trade journal related a story about training wheels that reminded me of something I also encountered four years ago. A bicycle shop owner in Missiissippi was, well, frightened by what he saw last year.
Parents who had bought bicycles at "big box" stores were coming to him after Christmas, and asking him for help with their 6 and 7 year old children's new bicycles. They wanted heavy duty training wheels mounted on the bicycles.
Their kids were so fat they had flattened the original training wheels.
It reminded me of something I ran into when working as a weekend mechanic at a bike shop in Atlanta. A parent came in, with a "Wally World" children's bicycle, and wanted us to do the same thing. His child couldn't use the training wheels.
They were crushed.
People, how did we all get this way? I grew up riding a bicycle to school, unless it was snowing. In that case, I would walk, or on bad mornings - below zero degrees farenheit - we took the school bus.
Nowadays? The line of cars driving their children to the local school near our old store threatened to block the road for good. And this wasn't just an isolated school in car-crazy "Hotlanta". It's everywhere.
According to the National Household Travel Survey, in 1969, nearly half of all kids ages 5 to 15 walked or biked to school By 2009, the number had fallen to 13 percent.
We are literally training ourselves, from the time we are old enough to walk, that an automobile is the only method of transportation that can, and should be used. The results? Frightening, and a national epidemic.
Since 1970, the number of obese children ages 6-11 has quadrupled, while the number of obese adolescents has tripled, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 20% of children were clinically obese, and 35% more were overweight in 2008.
In other words 55% of children were, well FAT.
As grownups, 68% of Americans -2/3 of us are overweight. FAT. In 1991, again according to the Robert Johnson foundation, no state had an obesity rate over 20%.
Today, only one - Colorado - has a rate BELOW 20%.
The costs are staggering. According to the Society of Actuaries, the US and Canada are incurring a nightmarish cost of $300 Billion dollars a year in excess medical and disability expense. Yet, our "fiscal conservatives" regularly attempt to cut programs such as Safe Routes to School that promote cycling and walking for children.
Other programs, such as Sustainable Communities, an effort to counter community "sprawl" and promote real-estate development planning for mixed use and transit orientated communities, has been completely eliminated. The "fiscal activists" are proud of the fact that they cut programs that promote things such as ‘sustainability,’ ‘livability,’ ‘inclusivity,’ and 'equity.’
It doesn't - or shouldn't - have to come to this.Sacrificing our health and our lives - in the name of saving a buck. We are literally killing ourselves - and worse, our children - all in the name of convenience in terms of a single transportation choice - automobiles. And ignoring anything else in the name of fiscal expediency. Especially that $300 Billion a year it costs us and our neighbors to the north. Cut that cost, you get back over $1 trillion in less than 4 years.
Getting healthy and fit doesn't take fancy exercise programs and health clubs. Or expensive carbon frame bicycles with exotic components. That trusty steel frame bicycle gathering dust in the corner can be spruced up, and used. Not just for fun and exercise, but also to get around on. And carry things. Leave the car in the garage. Save some money. Sell the car, use a bicycle and public transportation. Save a whole bunch.
Dr.Mark Manley, of Minnesota Blue Cross and Blue Shield summed it up in a recent article describing the way to combat the nearly $3 billion dollar a year cost of obesity to the state:
“We’ve put a lot of emphasis on trying to build physical activity for people’s everyday lives. So we’ve been less about having people ride 100-mile bike rides,” Manley said. “It’s more about how we get more normal people, regular people, out doing their commuting or running their errands or getting their kids to school on bikes.”
Or as we say in the shop "Ride Every Day - Ride Everywhere". It's not just a matter of saving money and the environment - it's your life you are saving.
