Driving makes you fat, and other public health issues

Some fascinating things that I’ve read in the last week, related to the social determinants of health and policies to improve public health. 

• Greg Lindsay at Fast Company charts the linkages between public health and urban sprawl, an association that was once deemed radical.  He writes about Dr. Richard Jackson, former CDC Chief,’s realization that America’s urban design was the cause of many of our most pressing public health issues: ‘”What public health is about,” he has since come to understand, “is the causes of the causes of death.” On Thursday morning at the annual meeting of the Congress of the New Urbanism in Atlanta, he informed a roomful of planners and architects, “You who create places that promote and protect health are probably doing more or health than those of us walking around in white coats.”‘

Michael Pollan, in the New York Review of Books, charts the rise of the food movement by reviewing 5 books.  He writes: “But although cheap food is good politics, it turns out there are significant costs—to the environment, to public health, to the public purse, even to the culture—and as these became impossible to ignore in recent years, food has come back into view.”  

The Economist has put out a special report on water in which they pose an interesting question: is water an asset or a human right?  They write: “All humans, however, need a basic minimum of two litres of water in food or drink each day, and for this there is no substitute. No one survived in the ruins of Port-au-Prince for more than a few days after January’s earthquake unless they had access to some water-based food or drink. That is why many people in poor and arid countries—usually women or children—set off early each morning to trudge to the nearest well and return five or six hours later burdened with precious supplies. That is why many people believe water to be a human right, a necessity more basic than bread or a roof over the head.”

And finally,because I loved the article and because mental health deserves some space as well, Peter Bregman at Harvard Business Review tells us to stop multi-tasking already – first, because it’s delightful and finally, because there is no downside.