
Sprawl and Obesity: NYC as a case study - pg
http://www.cnu.org/cnu-salons/2012/10/sprawl-and-obesity-nyc-case-study
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geargrinder
It is very difficult to live in Manhattan if you are not fit. All of the
stairs, subways, walking blocks from stations and stops to your destination. I
am sure that all the exercise helps those who are living there.

But if you create a place that is more difficult to be obese, sure, there will
be fewer obese people living there. It is also very difficult to live there if
you are older or weaker. The accommodations for handicapped are fewer and add
significantly to the hardship of just getting from one place to another.

I like Manhattan, but it can be difficult to get around if your have any
physical issues.

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joonix
Where do you suggest old people live, then? Most everywhere else in the US
requires car ownership to get around. Old people and cars do NOT mix well for
anybody. In NYC, they can step out of their apartment and have everything they
need within a few blocks.

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praptak
> Here's my educated guess: both poverty and sprawl correlate with obesity.

As long as it says "correlate", it is merely an observation on data. Easily
verifiable but not very useful, maybe as a start for forming a proper
hypothesis about causal relationships. Such a hypothesis would obviously be
much harder to verify.

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binarymax
A good friend of mine is trying to solve the food desert problem in inner city
Rochester, NY. It would be interesting to see food desert data overlaid with
this data as well. It's obvious that Manhattan is not a food desert and one
can easily get fresh produce. Not sure about certain places in the Bronx or
Queens though. It would also be interesting to see gentrification as a
contrast.

-edit- on an iPad now so can't see the flash based map, but data can be found here:[http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-desert-locator/go...](http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-desert-locator/go-to-the-locator.aspx)

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kahirsch
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/health/research/pairing-
of...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/health/research/pairing-of-food-
deserts-and-obesity-challenged-in-studies.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all)

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rdl
I think it's wealth correlating with obesity more than sprawl. Do people who
live in the Bronx or Queens really walk around less than those in Manhattan?

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bunderbunder
Interestingly, that's a lot like the hypothesis that the linked article
proposes.

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rdl
He's saying sprawl+wealth, I think just wealth. There are rural rich areas
(Napa, Boulder, etc.) which have fewer fat people than places like Birmingham,
AL.

