Traditional physical activity programming has pushed for people to start exercising and going to the gyms more frequently. To be a more viable and succesful strategy for healthy living, physical activity needs to be integrated into our day to day lifestyle. This includes having more side walks, more readily visible signs to suggest taking stairs, and having open and accessbile staircases in buildings.
An example of this can be seen in the couple buidlings that our classes are held in, the Medical Sciences Building (MSB) and the Katz Building (KATZ):
MSB:
KATZ:
Although this is not a quintessential solution to the obesity epidemic, reconsidering how buildings and our urban environments are built has huge implications in our health. There are some municipalities that have embraced such action and have benefited tremendously from it.
4 comments:
So true Sahil!! I have often compared my past and previous living space here in Edmonton too! Windsor Park Plaza, which many in our class now call home - you have to go down a LONG hallway to get to the stairs (which if you didn't know they were there, you NEVER would do this) vs. the elevators happily and lasily greet you, with the massive line of people waiting for the elevator to take them on their way. Compare this to my new condo, where you have to pass a nice staircase before you reach the elevator, it's hard to pass that staircase by!! And if you do, I would assume there's a BIT of guilt involved in that decision.
Wow it's so true. I've never taken stairs at MSB in my life - and I have zero impetus to due to location and the lack of any visual appeal.
Slow elevators also encourage taking the stairs. Perhaps we shouldn't fix our elevators and more people will take the stairs (for example our class walking up to the sixth floor for anatomy lab!)
Thanks for the comments guys. Yeah it's interesting seeing how many people take the elevators. When it's open and on the 2nd floor, it seems it gets packed, but if it's not there people seem to go to the stairs.
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