Living in a walkable city, it's remarkable when I go back to my hometown. There, everything is spread out so people don't really walk. The difference in people's body sizes is noticeable immediately.
There's got to be a relationship between North America's obesity crisis and the design of its cities.
In so many places in NA you are forced to get into your car to go anywhere. You're in your car to commute to work (where of course you sit all day), in the car to get groceries then back at home where you sloth on your couch, or desperately sweat on the peloton to try to make up for the fact that you sat in your car or at the office all day.
It's an incredibly stationary lifestyle that is forced by making it impossible to walk or use active transportation to do anything.
Even if you wanted to use another mode of transport it's often impossible if you live in the suburbs / exurbs.
Sidewalks can be patchy at best and bike lanes are an afterthought; often they include the steepest part of the road grade to shed water off to the side and include pinch-flat-happy sunken sewer / drain grates. Roads are often laughably designed in a car-centric manner, i.e. higher than an European highway with no lane markings or stop signs, turning it into a veritable drag strip.
Whenever someone in the boomer generation says "why don't kids go outside to play these days?", I always retort "look at the Outside that y'all designed for them" :|
> Even if you wanted to use another mode of transport it's often impossible if you live in the suburbs / exurbs.
I grew up in the US suburbs (in an area with some of the hottest and most humid weather in the country) and it has all the problems you mentioned. However, I have made it to age 40 without ever driving a car. How? By not ever driving a car.
Many people love the idea of biking/walking but they seem to love making excuses for not biking and not walking even more. Yes, it’s a risk. Many things are but people do them anyway. Yes, it’s inconvenient but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
My healthiest was when I lived in a small town of 30k people.
Everything was walkable. So I walked 30 minutes to work and back every day.
Went to the town centre for shopping and carried it back.
Put on a podcast or audiobook. Time will fly