This year I’ve traveled to New York City nearly a dozen times. As I write this, I’m looking out the window onto 50th Street, watching throngs of New Yorkers and tourists shuttling between Rockefeller Center and Broadway.
You can almost always tell the people who live in New York from the people who are visiting: New Yorkers rarely wear sneakers, for one, and in most cases, they are much skinnier than the folks from out of town.
It’s not that New York City dwellers are genetically predisposed to svelteness. In fact, the rate of obesity in the city rose from 19.5% to 22.8% between 2002 and 2004. Still, that’s pretty skinny by Alabama standards; the obesity rate in my state is more than 30%.
Why the disparity? It’s all the walking.
Although Americans tend to focus on diet (associating consumption with both obesity and diabetes), there are lots of factors—such as ethnicity, poverty, and lack of exercise—that contribute to our national weight problem. I know my diabetes is under much better management when I’m eating right and working out frequently. Exercise and diet are two-thirds of diabetes management. (Drug therapy is the third.)
And when I’m in the Big Apple, I’m compelled to exercise. I walk big city blocks, climb subway stairs, and dodge taxis and tubby tourists. After a few days, my legs burn and my feet are blistered. But my blood sugar is typically easier to manage; it even occasionally goes low because my body is unaccustomed to the pace.
Historically, cities have been associated with overcrowding and the disease that follows it—bubonic plague, anyone? Rural areas, like the part of Alabama where my farm is, are praised for fresh air, clean water, and lots of physically challenging work.
This used to be true, but rural Americans are now actually fatter than their urban counterparts, according to the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services. This trend is especially pronounced in kids. Of the many factors that contribute to obesity, environment plays a big role. The distance a community is from recreational facilities and its lack of sidewalks and exercise trails, for example, are linked to obesity, according to researchers at St. Louis University.
At home, I never walk anywhere. There are no sidewalks to troll, no subway stairs to climb, and no gym or soccer field within 10 miles of the house. In New York, I walk 20 to 30 blocks a day—often more. All this walking is one reason why New Yorkers are healthier in general.
It’s also why I should find a way to keep my New York state of mind when I go home.
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