The Built Environment
The built environment is a term for our manmade surroundings, everything from streets and parks to large civic buildings and small private places. Our surroundings have a big impact on our health because of the way they encourage or discourage physical activity and make it easy or difficult for us to reach the places we work, shop, or have fun.
Experts in many fields -- architecture, urban planning, traffic engineering, zoning, landscaping, and industrial design -- have focused in recent years on the broad variables that affect a region, such as resource accessibility, green space, population density, and traffic flow. Studies have consistently demonstrated an association between obesity and how those variables apply in the places that people live.
These connections between health and surroundings are especially clear in the area of physical activity. Regular activity helps both adults and children maintain weight loss and is also associated with improved overall health. Physical activity, even in modest amounts, can have a positive impact on diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol levels, and respiratory ailments. Some data also suggest a connection between exercise and improved mood, energy, and sleep.
Many Americans live in car-centric suburbs or impoverished inner cities where the built environment makes it difficult to get the exercise they need to stay healthy. Neighborhood-related factors that contribute to a disparity in obesity rates include the prevalence of fast-food restaurants; biking or hiking trails; sidewalks, street crosswalks, and green spaces.
In some neighborhoods, safety fears have played a major role in children’s fitness. Many parents are not comfortable having their children play alone outside in their neighborhoods. Because working parents don’t have much time to take their children outdoors, these safety fears form a significant barrier to children’s physical activity.
Different aspects of the physical environment play an important role in encouraging or discouraging healthy behavior.