You read it here first!
Some "experts" from the "Smart Growth" crowd hit the wires yesterday with a new study Sprawling Suburbs May Help Fuel Obesity and the Kool Aid drinkers in local newsrooms are lapping it up.

Sprawling suburbs that make it harder for people to get around without a car may help fuel obesity: Americans who live in the most sprawling counties tend to weigh 6 more pounds than their counterparts in the most compact areas.
...
There is growing recognition that ever-fatter Americans' tendency to be sedentary is at least partially due to an environment that discourages getting off the couch and out of the car. Do adults walk three blocks to the bus stop, or drive to work? Can kids walk to school? Is there a walking or biking path to the post office, restaurant, a friend's house?

In a sprawling community, homes are far from work, stores and schools, and safe walking and biking is difficult. But Thursday's research marks the first attempt to pinpoint just how much that matters.

OK, I'll bite - how big's the problem?

The nation's most compact areas were four boroughs of New York City — Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens; San Francisco County; Jersey City, N.J.'s Hudson County; Philadelphia; and Boston's Suffolk County.

Most sprawling were outlying counties of Southeast and Midwest metro areas: Cleveland's Geauga; Goochland County outside Richmond, Va.; Clinton County near Lansing, Mich.

In the 25 most compact counties, 22.8 percent of adults had high blood pressure and 19.2 percent were obese. In the 25 most sprawling counties, those rates were 25.3 percent and 21.2 percent, respectively.

Those aren't huge differences, Ewing acknowledged. But the risk from sprawl equaled certain other risk factors for obesity and hypertension, such as eating few fruits and vegetables, he said.

Well that's a huge honking problem, fer sure! Zzzzzz. And I'll eat vegetables any day rather than live in the Bronx or Jersey City. These "Smart Growth" weenies won't be happy until we are all living in Bauhaus boxes.

But one thing puzzles me. Why not examine people who live in real sprawl country - farm country? They have to drive everywhere because there is nowhere to walk to if they cared to. It wouldn't be because farm people live rather less sedentary than the rest of the population, would it? That and the fact that they want to condemn suburbs. The AP article obfuscates the source of this stuff, but the base Press Release makes it clear:

The study, Relationship between Urban Sprawl and Physical Activity, Obesity, and Morbidity is being published in a special issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion. Smart Growth America and the Surface Transportation Policy Project have issued a companion report, Measuring the Health Effects of Sprawl ...

Smart Growth America is a coalition of nearly 100 advocacy organizations that have a stake in how metropolitan expansion affects our environment, quality of life and economic sustainability.

The Surface Transportation Policy Project is a diverse, nationwide coalition working to ensure safer communities and smarter transportation choices that enhance the economy, improve public health, promote social equity, and protect the environment.

I'm so surprised.