Don’t eat and drive
Further to my post last night.
In Saturday’s Press lead on food corporates targeting schools, McDonalds’ PR man Liam Jeory said:
Police had approached McDonald’s for help with a seatbelt campaign because “hundreds of children” were dying on New Zealand roads each year.
Well, he’s right there. According to the Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee, the number one killer of children is cars.
To summarise their stats: the biggest single cause of death over 2002-03 for each age group shown is “Vehicular” (and I don’t think they mean trains). It gets worse as you go up the age range:
1-4 yr olds 13% of deaths
5-9yr olds 24% of deaths
10-14 yr olds 22% of deaths
These exceeds the proportions for all cancers combined and the proportions for all infectious diseases combined.
The last serious study of the causes of this was published in the British Medical Journal ten years ago. It found that:
“Risk of injury of child pedestrians was strongly associated with traffic volume: risk of injury at sites with highest traffic volumes was 14 times greater than that at least busy sites (odds ratio 14.30; 95% confidence interval 6.98 to 29.20), and risk increased with increasing traffic volume. High density of curb parking was also associated with increased risk (odds ratio 8.12; 3.32 to 19.90). Risk was increased at sites with mean speeds over 40 km/h (odds ratio 2.68; 1.26 to 5.69), although risk did not increase further with increasing speed. “
and comments that:
In Britain, New Zealand, and the United States education of pedestrians has been the main strategy to prevent injury of child pedestrians. There is, however, little evidence to support this approach, and few child pedestrian education programmes have been shown to reduce injury rates. In contrast, countries such as Denmark and Sweden, which have experienced large decreases in mortality of child pedestrians, have placed much greater emphasis on modification of the urban traffic environment.
The loops work like this: Because of the lack of safe separate cycle lanes and pedestrian routes, parents recognise that the traffic makes it unsafe for their kids to get to school, so they drive them there instead, which increases the amount of traffic and reduces their kids’ physical activity by two walks a day.
Once there, McDonalds’ helps the kids get across the road outside the school and encourages them to wear seatbelts, which in themselves aren’t bad messages, although McDs don’t deliver them for purely altruistic reasons - they make sure their ‘eat our food’ messages are built in through their branding.
So, if the kids don’t get killed by a car by the time they grow up, they’re obese. And nice Liam at McDonalds’ then says it isn’t the food that’s to blame, it’s the kids’ lack of exercise.
At the end of The Press article, Jeory said:
“I find it bizarre that when you sell family food and you want to give something back to the community it’s seen as wrong. I can’t fathom it.”
Try this, Liam: maybe when you “give something back to the community” you shouldn’t expect anything in return, i.e. don’t cover your gifts in your branding or advertising. Then people probably wouldn’t see what you’re up to as “wrong”.
October 31st, 2005 at 12:52 pm
You don’t mention that one of the main reason those figures are high is that the total death rate amongst children is low - heart disease and cancer don’t get you until middle-age onwards.
One effect of road traffic campaigns is to scare parents into thinking their kids are *likely* to be killed on the roads, when actually they are highly unlikely to be killed. So they aren’t allowed to walk and play outside and their health and social development suffers.
October 31st, 2005 at 1:33 pm
When a new subdivision is built, sufficient open space should be left to provide playing space: but these days every available square metre is used for houses. So many kids have nowhere to play but the streets.
October 31st, 2005 at 4:12 pm
It’s not just a matter of playing space - it’s also a matter of building subdivisions without local jobs, proper local services and public transport, which forces people to drive.
It’s utterly mad to be talking about building a new coastal highway so people can get to jobs in Wellington, when the jobs could be moved to where people live. Businesses like to clump together which lowers their operating costs, the costs are transferred to workers who have to pay for their transport. All very neat.
The existence of a car-based society, with all the dangers, deaths and damage it creates, is so taken for granted it becomes unchallengeable, meanwhile people try and ban trivial hazards, such as fireworks, which don’t have powerful champions.
October 31st, 2005 at 5:29 pm
The high density of traffic around schools makes biking and walking less safe. Reducing traffic to/from schools would reduce child mortality. Cycle routes to/from schools would be fantastic.
But also: encouraging kids to walk and bike while young, instead of riding in the car to school, has long-lasting affects on their habits. That, in turn, has more affect on their health than just about anything else. Your chance of being hit by a car while biking to school is comparatively low. Your chance of dying of heart disease in your 50s because you drive instead of biking to work is much higher. With the slow and steady decline of organised sport, individual exercise habits such as biking and walking are becoming even more important.
And that’s just on the purely selfish side of things, without considering pollution, etc…
November 1st, 2005 at 6:13 am
Perhaps the underlying key to much of this issue is the brain-dead idiocy of how we build our cities. Self-centeredness and money are the sole drivers of our urban landscapes.
Anyone who wants to see a way out of this needs to start with Christopher Alexander’s “A Pattern Language”. It is a work of genius.
Links of interest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language
http://downlode.org/etext/patterns/
November 1st, 2005 at 9:55 am
I find the language of the road safety campaign the wrong way round.
It says “Our Kids are being run over. The roads no playground.” Well I disagree, the road should be a playground, that message should say…
“Our Kids are being run over. The roads no racetrack.”
Personally whenever I see someone hooning alone in a car, I stand out in the road enough so they can see me, and make the wanker gesture at them.
November 1st, 2005 at 11:37 am
Here here to all of the above!
One interesting study in the UK - by Meyer and Hillman - looked at the effects of independent mobility on children’s mental wellbeing. Being able to walk or cycle to school by yourself (and just play in the neighborhood) is really fundamental to developing a health sense of self.
I love the above comment from Stuey and I have been looking for something to do to those posters……. Thank you!
Re the first comment that total mortality in childhood is lower - not true. Mortality is highest in the first few years of life and the last few. There is also a male-only blip in the 15-25 age group (cars of course). Cancer in particular peaks in childhood (when the body is growing rapidly) and after 40.
November 3rd, 2005 at 11:32 am
Well said stuey!
My kids run to catch their bus in the morning, walk up the hill at the end of the day, and only see our family in a vehicle when a friend loans me his (which I help store, but use maybe once a week)
They are the “least case scenario” in their school for obesity.
Many of their friends at primary age show obesity (no, it’s not puppy fat!) and have little exercise due to private transport, after-school care and sedentary computer games as their primary recreation at home (some, because their parents don’t want them to play out where it’s dangerous) and are bribedfor good behaviour weekly with McD’s on Friday night.
And most of the parents regard me as the greenie nutter, but are amazed at how healthy and intelligent my kids are….