Obesity, cars and cycling.

Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling, Uncategorized

You need a licence to own a dog, use a TV or a car but nothing to become a parent. Any idiot can have children, but raising them requires considerable skill and effort. Some parents just don’t realise this. However this is not the main cause of childhood obesity.In our instant gratification culture, where materialism rules and car-is-king culture it is no wonder that society is collapsing under its own weight. The fat I am most concerned about is that between politician’s ears.

We have an immoral transport policy where cycling is concerned. A means of independence and exercise for children, a means of reducing urban traffic congestion and a huge improvement on air quality and green house gas reduction. As UK local authorities spend less than 1% of their transport budget on cycle infrastructure it is not surprising that we have the kind of urban decay we have today.

Binge drinking, obesity, traffic chaos, fear of attack – these all stem from urban design formed around the ‘needs’ of the motor car which isolates human beings from one another. Compare any UK town to say, Offenburg in Germany.

Obese children are the result of a lack of freedom and mobility that disappeared as the UK governments pampered motorists with more roads at the same time as curtailing the freedom of all those outside the vehicle, unlike Offenburg. This German town has the balance between human space and car facilities right. Children ride bikes, without helmets (they don’t need to protect themselves from UK car insurers), along roads and around neighbourhoods that we can only dream of in the UK.

Yet this has existed in Germany for decades. The car was supposed to be a tool, instead it has become a god and we are now sacrificing our children to its ideals