The Wussification of America

[rocksinmyhead]

I believe his point was that "urbanites" spend a lot more time outside walking/biking as a form of transportation, whereas most "suburbanites" only outdoor exposure is the distance from their front door to their driveway, and from the parking lot at work to the building.

I don't think this is true - certainly not in my admittedly limited experience.  The typical urbanite might walk a bit more, say to the subway or bus stop, but the difference is really not significant.  Likewise with biking (in the US/Canada, not Europe).  The small minority of urbanites who bike for transport* are likely to face even more problems than suburbanites who do.

*Note that in both cases, I'm excluding the recreational cyclist who always drives 10-20 miles out of city or suburb to ride on rural roads or trails.

And then we could talk about elevators, and why so many urban folks seem to think they need to take them for one flight.

it probably just depends on the city. where I live, in a downtown area, I'm within walking distance (say <1.5 miles) of my workplace, lots of bars and restaurants, parks, gyms, a library, a post office, a farmers market, banks/credit unions, etc. so I usually walk to these places. most residential areas in the outskirts/suburbs of my city are not within walking distance of much of anything, or even if the distance is walkable, the infrastructure is very anti-pedestrian. so, most people drive to most of their destinations and do very little walking-as-transportation.

[Jamesqf]

it probably just depends on the city. where I live, in a downtown area, I'm within walking distance (say <1.5 miles) of my workplace, lots of bars and restaurants, parks, gyms, a library, a post office, a farmers market, banks/credit unions, etc. so I usually walk to these places.

Yes, it depends on the city. but it also depends on the person.  Sure, you walk to those places, but do most of your neighbors?  Likewise, in the only US suburb where I've spent significant time in the last couple of decades (the Almaden area of San Jose), I was within easy biking distance of all those things, and within walking distance of many.  And I did walk & bike, though I doubt most of my neighbors did.

Even in my semi-rural current location, I can (and sometimes do) easily bike to stores, library, post office, &c.  Even used to bike to work at previous jobs (the longest was a bit over 16 miles, through downtown), though these days I work from home.  So it's mostly a choice.

[Jack]

it probably just depends on the city. where I live, in a downtown area, I'm within walking distance (say <1.5 miles) of my workplace, lots of bars and restaurants, parks, gyms, a library, a post office, a farmers market, banks/credit unions, etc. so I usually walk to these places.

Yes, it depends on the city. but it also depends on the person.  Sure, you walk to those places, but do most of your neighbors?

I believe the percentage of people walking or biking is higher in urban areas than in suburbs.

[matchewed]

it probably just depends on the city. where I live, in a downtown area, I'm within walking distance (say <1.5 miles) of my workplace, lots of bars and restaurants, parks, gyms, a library, a post office, a farmers market, banks/credit unions, etc. so I usually walk to these places.

Yes, it depends on the city. but it also depends on the person.  Sure, you walk to those places, but do most of your neighbors?

I believe the percentage of people walking or biking is higher in urban areas than in suburbs.

Yeah most studies that I've seen point at urban people getting more physical activity.

Now if you want to go back to the original point of people being less able to withstand (or complain more about) the cold from some (/handwave) time in the past...

It is getting warmer so our point of reference is changing and our media does treat things differently than it used to. I don't think America is getting Wussified but that you can easily develop a perspective like that when you turn a skeptic eye towards reporting in general and how weather is framed specifically these days.

So is it you? Well yes and no. :)

[Jamesqf]

Yeah most studies that I've seen point at urban people getting more physical activity.

All I can say is that whoever did those studies must be looking at a very different rural than where I've been.  E.g.

...rural residents often face more severe barriers to
health promotion than non-rural residents, including higher rates of poverty, greater distance to travel for health care and other
services, lower levels of education, and possibly higher rates of chronic disease.

And in fact the authors of two of those papers admit that they're deliberately biasing their sample towards the rural poor:

To obtain a representative sample of lower income
individuals, zip codes were over sampled that had >32% of
residents below the Federal poverty level.

Now if you want to go back to the original point of people being less able to withstand (or complain more about) the cold from some (/handwave) time in the past...

Understand that it's not just cold, but weather of any sort.  It's just that cold is what most of the US is having this time of year.

[matchewed]

Yeah most studies that I've seen point at urban people getting more physical activity.

All I can say is that whoever did those studies must be looking at a very different rural than where I've been.  E.g.

...rural residents often face more severe barriers to
health promotion than non-rural residents, including higher rates of poverty, greater distance to travel for health care and other
services, lower levels of education, and possibly higher rates of chronic disease.

So anecdote>data. Gotcha.

And in fact the authors of two of those papers admit that they're deliberately biasing their sample towards the rural poor:

To obtain a representative sample of lower income
individuals, zip codes were over sampled that had >32% of
residents below the Federal poverty level.

That methodology was regardless of rural or urban so what you really mean is that the study intentionally included poor people in rural and urban zip codes.

Now if you want to go back to the original point of people being less able to withstand (or complain more about) the cold from some (/handwave) time in the past...

Understand that it's not just cold, but weather of any sort.  It's just that cold is what most of the US is having this time of year.

I don't think I disagree with you on that point given the rest of what I said in my comment.

[Jamesqf]

So anecdote>data. Gotcha.

So we should blindly believe anything that's labeled 'study' (or 'holy writ' &c), even when first-hand observation shows something different?

Just FYI, there are a lot of published studies that were later shown to be wrong, either through honest errors (cold fusion, arsenic life, etc), or deliberate fraud.

[matchewed]

Just as easy as to blindly believe that your experience equals reality eh?

Just an FYI there are lots of studies that are right as well.

I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, just that you may be presenting a narrow view of things that are solely supported by anecdotes, that has a tendancy of coming with some obvious biases. We should take even our own experiences with a grain of salt when stating this is how the world is. You see such a small portion of it, are you even sure it is representitive or do you assume it is because that's easier?

:)

[jba302]

This would be one of those moments in the lifespan of an internet thread where someone should post something about correlation not = causation without actually understanding what it means.

I'm not going to be that guy, but it would be timely. One of those death knell moments.

[GuitarStv]

So anecdote>data. Gotcha.

So we should blindly believe anything that's labeled 'study' (or 'holy writ' &c), even when first-hand observation shows something different?

Just FYI, there are a lot of published studies that were later shown to be wrong, either through honest errors (cold fusion, arsenic life, etc), or deliberate fraud.

This is surprisingly ignorant of the scientific method for a post by you James.  You're attempting to discredit all published studies on the pretense that they could be wrong . . . then arguing that your person experience is more valid to everyone else in the world than those studies?  That puts you firmly in the same camp as creationists and other crazies.

A legitimate argument needs to be backed by data.  If you can find other data (or make your own) to prove that the data argued by the other side is incorrect through honest error or deliberate fraud, or incomplete . . . then have at it.  Otherwise you're just denying facts and waving your hands in the air.

[uppy]

why are all of you guys watching the news? I stopped doing it years ago when all the news anchors became supermodels and it became clear to me it wasn't about the news at all, but the commercials. (And the realization that news/all TV is one big commercial.)

[Jamesqf]

This is surprisingly ignorant of the scientific method for a post by you James.  You're attempting to discredit all published studies on the pretense that they could be wrong . . .

No, I'm not trying to discredit all published studies, because I haven't seen all published studies.  It's only the three that were linked, two of which included the same authors, appeared to rely on the same data, and (as I pointed out above) were quite selective about what populations they choose for the study.  One can easily find studies that reach different conclusions.

It's also quite possible to bias your study, deliberately or not, simply by making choices of which particular rural and urban areas you look at.  Picking your rural areas from the southeast 'Obesity Belt' http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/cities-can-learn-lessons-about-diabetes-from-rural-areas-201306196405 give different results than if you pick from the more rural northeast or west.

It's also interesting to compare obesity rates with maps of populaion density: https://www.google.com/search?q=us+population+density+by+county+map&complete=0&site=webhp&tbm=isch&imgil=OI0Yc9LPFpXlpM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcQdci281M_Nq2VZiy8fNZ3a85ThGqc5-KPUyCSvEIqwqBny1pJ1%253B600%253B448%253BDFSlv0ZF8JoeNM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.census.gov%25252Fpopest%25252Fdata%25252Fmaps%25252F2011%25252FCounty-Density-11.html&source=iu&usg=__G2FOlrsP8uYzHB84JtkXFNmS3Ug%3D&sa=X&ei=F57yUrzXLNCJogTZ14DoDA&ved=0CCkQ9QEwAA&biw=1115&bih=934#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=OI0Yc9LPFpXlpM%253A%3BDFSlv0ZF8JoeNM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.census.gov%252Fpopest%252Fdata%252Fmaps%252F2011%252FPopDensity_11.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.census.gov%252Fpopest%252Fdata%252Fmaps%252F2011%252FCounty-Density-11.html%3B600%3B448  Looks like a pretty good matchup to me.

why are all of you guys watching the news?

'Cause I visit friends who sometimes have the TV on, and it would be rude to insist that they turn it off.

[matchewed]

This is surprisingly ignorant of the scientific method for a post by you James.  You're attempting to discredit all published studies on the pretense that they could be wrong . . .

No, I'm not trying to discredit all published studies, because I haven't seen all published studies.  It's only the three that were linked, two of which included the same authors, appeared to rely on the same data, and (as I pointed out above) were quite selective about what populations they choose for the study.  One can easily find studies that reach different conclusions.

It's also quite possible to bias your study, deliberately or not, simply by making choices of which particular rural and urban areas you look at.  Picking your rural areas from the southeast 'Obesity Belt' http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/cities-can-learn-lessons-about-diabetes-from-rural-areas-201306196405 give different results than if you pick from the more rural northeast or west.

It's also interesting to compare obesity rates with maps of populaion density: https://www.google.com/search?q=us+population+density+by+county+map&complete=0&site=webhp&tbm=isch&imgil=OI0Yc9LPFpXlpM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcQdci281M_Nq2VZiy8fNZ3a85ThGqc5-KPUyCSvEIqwqBny1pJ1%253B600%253B448%253BDFSlv0ZF8JoeNM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.census.gov%25252Fpopest%25252Fdata%25252Fmaps%25252F2011%25252FCounty-Density-11.html&source=iu&usg=__G2FOlrsP8uYzHB84JtkXFNmS3Ug%3D&sa=X&ei=F57yUrzXLNCJogTZ14DoDA&ved=0CCkQ9QEwAA&biw=1115&bih=934#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=OI0Yc9LPFpXlpM%253A%3BDFSlv0ZF8JoeNM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.census.gov%252Fpopest%252Fdata%252Fmaps%252F2011%252FPopDensity_11.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.census.gov%252Fpopest%252Fdata%252Fmaps%252F2011%252FCounty-Density-11.html%3B600%3B448  Looks like a pretty good matchup to me.

why are all of you guys watching the news?

'Cause I visit friends who sometimes have the TV on, and it would be rude to insist that they turn it off.

Um... nope.

Although two of the studies linked had shared two authors they did not share all the authors nor did they even share the same data.
One study -

The study surveyed 2912 women aged 40 years and older by telephone, using a modified version of the sampling plan of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS). 24–26 To obtain a nationally representative sample of minority women in a cost efficient manner, zip codes were selected with 20% or more of each of the following racial/ethnic categories: African American, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and Hispanic

The other study -

Interviews were completed between September 1999 and January 2000 for 1818 men and women.

And as I pointed out above they were selective to the poor in general not rural poor specifically as you claim.

And if you can easily find the studies that reach the different conclusions maybe you can provide it.

And if obesity by county should match up with population density then these two maps should be identical and they're not. Regardless this discussion is more of a red herring shifting the discussion towards obesity rather than physical activity which was what the original discussion was.