Does living in the suburbs make you more likely to become a fat?

[memphis]

Although I am as tired as everybody else of this suburb vs city stuff,  I have seen data showing higher rates of obesity in suburbs. This could be self selective to a certain degree, but I agree that an urban environment is a healthier one. I walk a lot more when I'm in an urban area.

[Nym90]

There may be something to this; obviously if it isn't possible to walk to where you need or want to go, and you have to drive, it may make a difference.

Likewise, in the city, driving is often expensive due to the cost of parking, so it encourages walking.

However, the choices people make in their personal lives will far outweigh the factor of where they live in determining their level of obesity.

[bgwah]

Yes, obviously.

Are you people reading the question? It is not saying that it is a sure thing (there are obviously exceptions), but simply that suburbanites are more likely to be fat. Which they are.

Why would Republican McFatAss walk half a mile down the street to McDonalds when he can drive his SUV there?

But go ahead, try and defend your disgusting and wasteful lifestyle.

Not that I live in the suburbs... *looks around cautiously*

[angus]

(here we refer to San Francisco as 'The City')

Generally it's "the city by the bay"  And prior to one hundred years ago it was alternately "the paris of the West" or the "biggest city in the West"  But very early in the morning on April 18, 1906, an intense earthquake tore along the San Andreas fault and killed about 3000 San Franciscans.  Richter's scale had not yet been invented, but the estimates range from 7.7 to 8.3 magnitude.  The quake, and resulting gas fires destroyed most of 'The City' (about 20 by 20 blocks at the time) with an estimated 400 million dollars worth of damage.  Yes, today is the 100th anniversary of the earthquake that nearly destroyed the city that some have even called "Dog Cannes."  And a beautiful city it is.  As if in defiance of the gods, the good people of San Francisco would build the magnificent construction-worker orange Golden Gate Bridge upon the epicenter of the 1906 quake.  I've ridden my bicycle across the bridge, but I'm not sure that's allowed any more.  My wife doesn't care to drive in The City, but I rather enjoy it:  that delicate balance between clutch and accelerator, perched at a 45-degree angle on a hill awaiting the Green Light, only inches behind a big city bus and inches in front of a cable car, with little room for error.  Really separates the men from the boys.  (Not an easy thing to do in San Francisco.)  Sure, the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets have become yuppified and gentrified.  I think there's a "Galactically great brownie store" which sells a seven dollar cup of coffee on one corner, a book store on another which does well with Hillary Clinton bios, an upscale clothing store that'll sell you a tie-died Tee made in an indonesian sweatshop, and a little curio shop on the fourth corner.  (it's usually closed, but priced way beyond the reach of most folks anyway), and you can watch the tourists and born-again "hippies" move their Suburban Assault Vehicles occassionally when it's street sweeping time.  But it's still a fun place to hang out, even all yuppified and gentrified.  Let's all have a cheer for the city in which dogs now outnumber children, and in which those dogs are treated better by the locals than the many homeless people of San Francisco.

On any given afternoon in San Francisco's Marina district, dogs fill the streets and parks, the outdoor cafés and shops. They keep appointments with their masseurs and acupuncturists; they sit for portraits and for readings with their astrologers. Over the objections of no less than the federal government, they romp unleashed through the delicate habitats of nearby Crissy Field. The Marina is dog country—no, dog Cannes—and no one here sees anything the least odd about it. San Francisco is home to 745,000 people and an estimated 110,000 dogs, packed into an insular fiefdom just seven miles (11 kilometers) long and seven wide. Not coincidentally, it also has the lowest ratio of children to adults of any major U.S. city: There is little doubt that dogs are helping fill a parental void—especially in the affluent Marina. "Those dogs are babied," says retired postal carrier Spence Burton, 58, who delivered mail in the Marina for 25 years. "Even tiny apartments have, like, two rottweilers. But they're not exactly guard dogs."
 
Not exactly. On a recent afternoon, Billy Franchey, 34, chauffeurs Gigi, a keeshond mix, and her "best friend" Ruby, an Australian dingo, to the neighborhood park in an electric cart for a bit of exercise. Afterward, in matching cowboy hats and sweaters, Gigi and Ruby may go to "yappy hour" at a Union Street boutique. "The Marina has a lot of young people who aren't married so, you know, you get a dog," says Franchey's girlfriend, Lisa Mobini, 29, a former NFL cheerleader. Her cell phone is loaded with pictures of Gigi dressed as a princess for Halloween and as an angel for Christmas. "Honestly, she has a better wardrobe than I do."
 
A few blocks away, astrologer Billie O'Neill pores over the star charts of Franklin, a fat Welsh corgi unwilling to share toys with his buddies in the park. "He was a warrior in all of his past lives," she says thoughtfully. "But this life is about learning partnership and cooperation." Perhaps it's too much to expect him to share, really: With an ascendant water sign, Franklin's chart indicates he is focused on "material security."
 
A black Porsche glides down Chestnut Street with Slick, a seven-year-old standard poodle, regally upright in the passenger seat. Owner Sandra Ingrish takes him along on errands—to the grocery store, the bookshop, the bank—and so Slick, elegant and entitled, is a neighborhood fixture beloved by camera-toting tourists. "There are so many dogs, it's really kind of amazing for a city this size. Dogs in New York never really looked that happy," says Ingrish, who moved to San Francisco from Manhattan. Says Ted Rheingold, founder of dogster.com: "Folks here do not feel it's abnormal to be in love with their dogs."
  This month's National Geographic Magazine



oh, and I have idea about the suburban fat thing.  I think it may vary by region and by climate and by race/ethnicity moreso than by local population density, but that's a guess.

[Jacobtm]

I live in the suburbs, and people in my town are way more fit/healthy than the national average. I always assumed it was because rich people are more able to afford health foods and membersgups to fitness clubs etc. Also, being richer tends to make people more vain/self concious, so they care about looking good.