Wisdom and Wishes About Walking to School

Another solution to obesity popped up in the headlines today. “Student Loses 115 Lbs. by Walking to High School Every Day,” says People magazine. That headline happened to coincide with the release of a new study in BMC Public Health. A press release from the University of Cambridge tells us:

Children who regularly walk or cycle to school are less likely to be overweight or obese than those who travel by car or public transport, a new study suggests.

Such soundbites tell the public daily that this obesity thing isn’t really so complicated after all. This is where we get ideas like this propagating on Twitter:

Stop making it a medical condition. It’s a self-created condition #Period. Stop making it something it’s not! It’s time to be real, game times over, get healthy or suffer the consequences.

Everyone can feel like an expert. It goes with the territory.

An Observational Study

The study from Cambridge is a fine study for what it is. It’s observational. That means the researchers carefully documented a correlation between walking to school and less adiposity. They did a good job of accounting for other factors that might be at work in this relationship. For example, they factored in social and economic status. Also ethnicity and neighborhoods.

But at the end of the day – as the authors themselves note – it’s not a study of cause and effect. It can’t tell us that making kids walk to school will reduce their adiposity. Other factors come into play. And then there’s the question of reverse causality. Does the relationship we’re seeing work in the opposite direction? Perhaps leaner kids are more likely to walk to school. In other words, less adiposity might cause more walking to school.

Making Active Lives Routine

One thing is pretty clear. Transportation and urban planning have taken a lot of routine physical activity out of our lives. As Church and Martin recently described, we’re not lacking in formal bouts of exercise. Gym memberships and recreation time are steady and growing. Instead, it’s the routine physical activity that we’re missing.

Kids no longer walk uphill both to and from school, as their parents claim they once did. In most settings, people move through their lives without any physical effort. Cars, buses, and trains move us around. We stare at computer screens instead of walking about.

So absolutely, it makes sense for kids to walk to school. But communities need to plan for it and commit to making it work. It can bring the benefits of a more active life. But it’s hardly guaranteed to solve problem of obesity in a single stroke.

And despite the inspiring story from People magazine, it’s not a one-size-fits-all cure for obesity in youth.

Click here for the study, here for the press release, and here for the inspiring anecdote from People.

Free Range Children, photograph © Erin Thomas Wilson / flickr

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May 21, 2019