Commuters Who Bike or Walk Are Fitter

When I lived in Boston, I did a lot of walking. The care and maintenance of a car in that city was beyond my means, plus getting behind the wheel there would have scared me to death. So when I couldn't take the bus or the subway, I relied on my own two feet. Especially for local errands -- grocery shopping, going to the library, picking up and returning videos. Plus, I liked to walk -- I liked the freedom of not waiting for a ride, and as a result, I saw noticeable improvements in my physical fitness (all the easier to work off the calories from all that chowder.)

I often walked to work, too. For some jobs, it was faster to walk than to navigate the convoluted bus transfers I’d need to get there. And when I worked downtown, often by the end of the week (after I had searched the cushions of all the furniture for spare change) I had to choose between morning coffee and a subway ride. Very often the subway ride lost. So I would hoof the three miles into town, then on the way home I'd walk until the point where the subway came above ground to become the trolley. At that point, all outgoing travel was free.

When I moved from the city to a part of New York State where public transportation is practically nonexistent and even walking to the closest convenience store was a two-hour proposition (each way), I quickly noticed that staying in shape required more effort. Instead of walking everywhere I went, I had to join a gym.

So I did a big mental "duh" when I read that, according to an article published by the Associated Press, a large study on US health and commuting concluded that walking and biking to work instead of taking the car or public transportation was linked to improvements in fitness levels. Like they needed a study to tell us this?

Even so, only 17% of the 2000 city-dwelling workers surveyed walked or bicycled during any portion of their commute.

These more active commuters showed marked improvements in their physical fitness levels, as measured on treadmill tests, then those who drove or took public transportation. And since the researchers took into account the workers’ leisure time activities, they could extrapolate that active commuting choices did make a difference in fitness.

I talked to people from various towns in my community who would prefer to bike or walk to work, but didn't because their local infrastructures were unfriendly to pedestrians. The researchers cited similar resistance among the people they surveyed. Nonexistent or crumbling sidewalks, dangerous traffic, lack of bike paths, or living many miles from their workplaces would definitely keep lots of people in their cars, or taking buses or subways.

"I would love to bike to work, but it is completely unsafe for me to do so," according to Penny Gordon-Larsen of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was the leader of the study. "There is one real small, narrow area where there is no bike lane."

Even though she can't bike to work, she does compensate by walking her kids to school.

"I'm really glad to see people starting to take a look at this in the US," said James Salas, of San Diego State University. He noted that prior research has concluded that countries where more of their working populations walked or biked to work had the lowest levels of obesity.

Perhaps a study like this one would encourage local communities to add improvements like sidewalks and bike paths, and encourage employers to consider adding amenities like changing areas or showers. Or maybe, like some companies, offered financial incentives like reductions in health insurance fees for workers who bike or walk to work as part of their overall fitness plan.

What do you think? (Other than why we wasted the money to do this study, or that the young woman in the photo should be wearing a helmet and a hands-free device to talk on her cell phone?) Do you bike or walk to work already? Would you, if it were easier or safer? What if your workplace either made it friendlier (safe places to lock up your bike, changing facilities), or gave you a break on your health insurance?