The hardest thing I ever did was move to
Brookside. But I looked forward to seeing unfamiliar neighborhoods, people, and
architecture. I wanted to taste new culture—not in shops, but where people
lived.
In the last two months, I’ve found
Brookside to be cute in a quiet, faux English Tudor sort of way. Stately trees,
decent sidewalks, broad boulevards, even a walking trail.
The sad part is hardly anyone walks. Day
or night, the streets are deserted.
You see, I’m a bipedalist. A true believer, not an
it’s-time-for-my-workout kind of guy. I walk all the time. I once walked most
of the way from Kansas City to Helena, Montana, because I wanted to. It’s a
slow day when I get four or five miles—regardless of weather.
As a spiritual man, an ordained minister,
and a walking man with a newspaper column, my mission is clear. I tell you now
of a simple truth you won’t find a diet book, a nutritional guide, or at the
doctor’s office. Your analyst will not tell you this. But I will.
Walking will solve most of the world’s
problems. And if not the world’s, then yours and mine.
This simple precept is the basis of The
Gospel of Bipedalism, and it has plenty to do with you, personally.
The National Center for Smart Growth
Research and Education at the University of Maryland recently published Measuring
the Effects of Sprawl: A National Analysis of Physical Activity, Obesity and
Chronic Disease
(www.smartgrowthamerica.org). The study included 448 counties with
three-quarters of Americans live.
The conclusions aren’t astonishing:
People who live in sprawled cities like the Kansas City metro are more likely
to drive than walk. Data indicates people in sprawling communities have more
health problems related to inactivity—hypertension, obesity, and diabetes—than
people who live in compact cities. Moreover, if you live in a suburban county,
such as Clay or Johnson counties, of a sprawled city you are even more likely
to have inactivity-related health problems.
According to the study, we in the Kansas
City area hit the bull’s eye, being about average overweight, hypertensive,
unhealthy Americans. (Actually, Jackson County in Missouri was a little below
average, while Clay and Platte counties were above. In Kansas, Wyandotte County
scored below average, but Johnson County came out above.)
That means, we know from other research,
that one in five of us will die of a heart attack, one half of us risk
diabetes, and a quarter of us will suffer from high blood pressure and its
effects—heart, kidney, and liver disease, and stroke.
The study also has strong words for folks
who think a trip to the gym is a healthful silver bullet. People living in
sprawled communities don’t walk as a part of routine daily living. Simple
routine walking is important to keeping obesity and hypertension in check.
Now, backed with the Smart Growth
Center’s study and my own research, I tell you WALKING IS WHAT WE, ALL OF US,
ARE MEANT TO DO. Walking is humankind’s natural motion. When Austrolopithecus
lifted its head above the grass of the Transvaal plain, gathered fruit and
hefted babies, we started walking.
And if you’re more biblically inclined:
God placed Adam in the Garden with two eyes on the front of his head, two feet
with shortened digits, and long upper leg bones connected by widely articulated
hip joints to a strategically shaped pelvis so he could gather fruit and heft
babies and start walking.
If you are still not convinced to lace up
your shoes and walk, consider:
1. Physical and mental health: You deserve to be healthy, for
yourself, your family, friends, and community. Instead of buying a book on
low-carb diets high in dead-animal content, put on your shoes and walk. Whether
you’re four pounds overweight or 200, if you get off the couch and walk,
everyday, you will feel better. My research shows people who feel better don’t
care what models in magazines look like. And they become healthier and lose
weight besides.
In addition, when you walk, you
experience the rhythm of walking through your being. You will find relief from
the day’s stresses. You will think, work through problems, decide things. My
research shows people who walk are gentler and take things easier than people
who don’t walk.
2. Urban sprawl: You deserve to live in an inviting
place. People who take up walking gain a different view of their neighborhoods.
You will want to live in a place like Brookside, where you can walk, instead of
in an isolated cul-de-sac development sandwhiched between high-traffic arterial
trafficways where walking is just downright depressing. The more you walk, the
more you will take interest in how communities are built. Once that happens,
the politicians, planners, and developers have to listen—to you.
3. Paranoia: You are meant to be social. You are not
meant to suspect every one of your fellow men and women of trying to harm you,
despite everything you have been told in “fair and balanced” news reports. If
you walk, you will come into contact with people. Regardless of how you feel about it, exercising social skills with
strangers is beneficial to you, your family, your career, and your community.
In a short time, you will find it fun and enjoyable. Oddly, when this happens,
people become friendlier.
4. Ignorance: You deserve to know the architecture of
your neighborhood, and of the neighborhoods adjoining yours. You deserve to
know what is ugly and inhumane architecture—built for isolation of the
inhabitants and glorification of the automobile—and architecture that is
humane, delightful, and uplifting for the people who live in it are and around
it.
5. Crime: You deserve to live in a safe, secure
community. Power-hungry cops, John Ashcroft, and drug-warriors cannot give that
to you. Only you and your neighbors, walking, talking, seeing each other,
noticing what goes on and who lives where, can provide that.
If it sounds simple, it is a sound creed.
Take a walk everyday for a month, regardless of the weather, and find out.
As for me, I will walk. But I can’t wait to
get out of Brookside and back home to the Westside. People walk there.
Rev. Patrick Dobson is a Universal
Life Church minister and an ardent advocate of the Gospel of Bipedalism.
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