Councilwoman Jan Perry has taken it upon herself personally to fight obesity. She declared a moratorium on the fast food industry in South LA where obesity has gone through the roof. The city council voted unanimously on this in hopes of attracting restaurants that will serve healthier food. The county of Los Angeles has about a 15% obesity rate while the jurisdiction of South LA has a shocking 25% obesity rate. Obesity, especially in our children, is one of the biggest problems leading to the prevalence of many avoidable health problems such as Type 2 Diabetes. The failure rate is also rising in children unable to pass their physical education requirement tests. Councilwoman Jan Perry is fed up and calling this moratorium a strategy in “health zoning.”
What I find particularly interesting about this epidemic is the relation it has with design. If you look at the communities where the obesity is the highest it seems to correlate directly with park accessibility. The areas in which people are the most obese have the least amount of park acreage per resident. It also seems to have a lot to do with poverty in regards not having an access to cars to get to a park that is more than a 1/2 mile away.
Perry's goal of ordering a moratorium on fast food is a good start but it seems that Perry may be missing the bigger picture. Yes the spread of fast food does need to shrink but that alone will not change obesity. We must designate more area towards building parks and open green space for children to actually utilize and be able to run around in and burn off the calories they consume.
This topic is compelling to me particularly due to my own diagnosis of type 1 diabetes when I was only four years old. 10 years ago, when I told someone I was “diabetic,” people would say what does that mean? Now when I tell people, most peoples response is: “Insert family member’s name has diabetes.” This has personally been alarming in the observation in the convergence of awareness of this chronic disease and has really brought to my attention just how fast this disease has become an epidemic in a mere 10 years. Almost 8% of our population has diabetes. That is about 24 million people who have been diagnosed with the disease. The huge increase of diagnosed cases in the past decade seems to be inclusively type 2 diabetes stemming from being overweight.
I learned from a young age that it is not only what we eat but also incorporating daily exercise to stay healthy and fit. These two things must go hand in hand. For an area like Los Angeles, to be so spread out lush yet lack the green space needed for children to be able to utilize is absurd. Los Angeles is considered to be this utopian hotspot due to the beautiful weather year round. Yet ironically, our obesity is higher than many states with worse weather. Doesn’t it seem that it would be obvious that Los Angeles should have a low if not the lowest obesity rate due to the shear fact that people who live here would rather be outdoors than indoors in this city?
That's an pretty interesting topic. Landscape could be viewed as a tool to create green spaces for exercising for sure, while in my view, in order to stimulate people's passion on outdoor activities, what we should do is more than that. Maybe it is an attitude or opinion or the way of living, maybe it is also important for the programs happening in these green spaces. It seems that how to use it is more important and difficult to deal with.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a bigger issue than just making more parks- there is a serious issue with educating people on smart healthy behaviors. Yes, a park is great- but is not the only thing we need, we need people to know why they are killing their children with fast food. Parents need to be responsible and force their kids to go out to play. I agree all neighborhoods should have an accessible green space, but those spaces need to implement program in these parks to educate and promote healthy living.
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