Longer Commutes Are Bad For You! Imagine That! Part 2

Towards the end of May, I uncovered a US study linking longer commutes to less physical activity, worse cardiorespiratory fitness, and increase waist circumference along w/metabolic syndrome.  I also dug out of my flash drive a Swedish study from last November in which longer commutes were associated w/poorer health outcomes.  Of course, these two studies made me wonder if this was just a phenomena of Western civilization or whether a similar linkage would be noted in less developed parts of the world.

Well, wonder no more.  Earlier this month, an analysis of the China Health & Nutrition Survey was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in which the authors concluded that use of motorized transportation is associated w/increase in adiposity in the Chinese population, especially men.  This is definitely not good news for me since I spend a great portion of my day driving from home to home!

To arrive at their conclusion, the authors followed 3,853 Chinese men (48%) & women (52%) in their mid-40s for ~8yrs.  During that period of time, use of motorized transportation was associated w/greater gain in weight & waist circumference compared to those who used non-motorized transportation, even after adjusting for baseline age, anthropometry, dietary intake, etc.  In fact, motorized transportation was associated w/30% greater risk of abdominal obesity in men and 2 fold higher risk of obesity in women.

I think it's pretty clear that as civilization advances (China is a great example of the trend towards urbanization), we need to take into account how our (lack of) activity will impact our health, lest we evolve like the humans in Disney Pixar's 2008 animated movie, WALL-E.

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