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Car-free zones around schools 'can beat obesity'
Last updated at 23:52pm on 13.08.07
Walking to school could benefit children and parents
Car exclusion zones should be set up around schools to force children to walk to lessons, an environmental think-tank said yesterday.
It said parents should be banned from driving within a half-mile radius of a school to help tackle the dramatic decline in childhood activity levels.
Car-free areas should also be established next to shopping centres to prevent motorists making unnecessary short journeys, it added.
A report by the Institute for European Environmental Policy claimed increased car use is encouraging the 'twin crises' of obesity and global warming.
In 2005, the average parent notched up 82 miles a year doing the school run - up from 55 miles in 1989.
At the same time, the number of fat children doubled, with one in four aged 11 to 15 classified as obese - so overweight it threatens their health.
Walking for an extra hour a week could stave off a weight gain of two stones over ten years, the experts claimed.
This would also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 11million tons - 15.4 per cent of the current total released by passenger cars, according to the institute's report, Unfit for Purpose: How Car Use Fuels Climate Change and Obesity, added.
Co-author Carolina Valsecchis said: "Something as simple as walking short trips now made by car would make an important contribution to tackling both obesity and climate change."
Reader views (10)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
I believe in walking to school and activily encourage at the school I work at.1 mile should be no trouble for any school age child.Just one problem out here in the sticks,few pavements and drivers who think the countryside is a race track.Yes most roads have grass verges and country children have wellies,crossing the water grips(drain gullies)some of which can be a foot or a foot and a half wide means going into the road.Walking in the limited light means you can miss to see these grips-twisted legs and ankles are iminate.I am a careful grown up and I have suffered one broken ankle and many awkward twists from these grips.So in principle I am all for walking to school but in practise it is not always practicle.Due to closing small schools some children out her in the sticks have no choice but to travel 5 miles to a school in some cases.
- Glenys Walker, Gloucestershire England
This is well meant but foolishly not thought through properly.
Very few car journeys are single purpose, this has been amply established by research. So the "school run" is also a stage in at least one parent getting to work.
Only the oldest children can be left to walk alone to school because traffic and the bullying epidemic makes streets unsafe. So the chaperoning parent must return home again to fetch the car, unable to double up the journey.
Get up earlier to fit it in? But most working people already get too little sleep and health standards are suffering as a result.
Then how to get the child home again? Frequently this is done by one parent doing the rounds dropping children off. How is this to be managed getting to different spaced out homes?
Then too busy mothers, already overworked with the triple shift to breaking point, not only do one journey for the school run, and commuting to work, but dash round shops to get the family food as well. How is she to do separate trips for school and work, one walking one driving AND fit in the shopping too? Yet more sleep lost I think.
I can see a major upsurge in home education coming out of this. Certainly this would be a good thing as the quality of education and socialising is far better as those who do it already know. It will also ironically achieve more walking as parental work has to be reshaped to give a more time rich lifestyle. Good.
- Shan Morgain, Newport Wales
Local schools for local kids is the answer.
- Philip, London, England
The excuses made by other correspondents for not warming to this idea are pathetic. As a kid, I used to walk at least a mile to school each way. But that was in the day when parents didn't pander to their children so much and wrap them up in cotton wool. It's no more dangerous out there than it was 20 years ago!
- James, London, UK
This will simply mean that parents en route to work will have to drop children a long way from school and we will have more snatched children!
- Charlotte, Bolton, England
Or do something old fashioned, like bring back PE classes?
- Roz, Chamonix, France
The assumption has been made here that people would walk more and eat either the same or less. A number of overweight/obese people I know feel the need to eat after the slightest bit of exercise. The excuse being that they have to recover their energy levels/bring their blood sugar back up/etc. My own research shows most people just eat too much.
- Michael, London
What, I wonder, are parents supposed to do, who bring children from further than walking distance? Or who have jobs, and drop off the children on their way in to work?
Virtually all roads are now yellow-lined or residents only, where are they supposed to park the car while they walk their child through the zone around the school? I read this as a £1 per school-day child tax, for the parking it makes necessary.
- Nigel, London
How about Ken Livingstone not spending £50 million a year on giving children free tube and bus transport, would that not force children to walk? Then we could spend the money on something that benefits everyone, or even better give it back to the people who need it i.e. the council tax payer.
- Pa Roddy, London
This would be very difficult for families with more than 1 child as local authorities seem unable to send siblings to the same school. This forces parents to cover large distances quickly to drop/pickup their children.
Also, if siblings went to school together, then after a certain age, they could walk together but without a parent and still be safe.
- Graham, Reading, England
