![\"\"](\"https:\/\/streetsblog.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/overweight-man-driving-car-365kk1001-277x300.jpg\" "\\"overweight-man-driving-car-365kk1001\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nCar dependence is fueling the obesity epidemic, says UCLA’s Dr. Richard Jackson. Photo: AOL News<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Obesity is a \u201ccommon cause epidemic,\u201d and a related health impact, diabetes, is now a \u201ccrushing health crisis,\u201d driven in large part by the sedentary, car-based lives we are leading. Sprawl, in effect, kills.<\/p>\n Less density equals more driving. \u201cWe are engineering exercise out of people\u2019s lives\u201d by creating suburban cul-de-sacs and putting places of work and living far from each other.<\/p>\n Instead of addressing the public health impacts of the absence of trees, low-albedo<\/a> streets (which contribute to the urban heat island effect), as well as a lack of planning, public transit, or safe streets, we are instead \u201clooking at the end of the pipeline,\u201d the medical effects. Our environment is sending us a message: \u201cWe are appendages to our cars.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Dr. Jackson is a proponent of \u201cdesigning for well being.\u201d On a local level, that might entail developing organic food gardens at schools and hospitals. At the national level, he argues for investment in public transit, bicycle infrastructure and safe routes to school.<\/p>\n\n