Walking

Caught this on a blog this morning: 

Here’s a passage from the book, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, that caught my attention: “Now here’s a thought to consider. Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week. For 93 percent of all trips outside the home, for whatever distance or whatever purpose, Americans now get in a car. On average the total walking of an American these days —- that’s walking of all types: from car to office, from office to car, around the supermarket and shopping malls — adds up to 1.4 miles a week, barely 350 yards a day. That’s ridiculous.”

Wow!  That is ridiculous.  When you consider that just a decade ago, our national health was in better shape.  Look at the statistic on obesity along which shows that in the United States, obesity prevalence doubled among adults between 1980 and 2004.  If people would walk more that could go down.  Now I am not the world’s fittest individual, but I try.  If there is a situation where I can walk instead of drive I will do that.  I try to ride my bike everyday at least 20 miles if I have the time.  That helps keep my weight down – still have some more to go.  I work to reduce the amount of processed foods that I consume.  I am sure there are other things that I can do.

Changing one’s lifestyle is hard.  I live in a community where driving or not is an option for the most part.  The nearest grocery store is about 5 miles away, which is doable without a car if you are not buying much.  I live 17 miles from work which is not doable when you are rushing to get there in under an hour and the roads on which to get there are very busy, so walking or biking to work is not really doable.    I guess because of my recreational riding I feel as though I kind of deserve to drive because I do a little more that the average person.  But reading the above item makes me realize that there is much more I could do, much more that we all could do.