Exercise and Various Cities in the US

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Veronica Lois is a second year pediatric resident at Stanford University who enjoys writing and now wants to share her medical knowledge with the general public. As an undergraduate studying biology at MIT, she was selected as a Burchard Scholar in recognition for excellence in the humanities. As a medical student at Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, she was awarded Alumna Sobresaliente (Outstanding Student) for top grades.

Part 2: Exercise and various cities in the US

Living in lots of cities recently has made me aware of the fact that the amount of exercise I get depends on where I live. In LA, walking is out of the question unless you are walking inside a mall. To quote the movie Clueless, everywhere in LA is 20 minutes away, but you have to be driving. Miami and Jackson are driving cities as well. Chicago has great public transportation and so you walk to and from “L” stops. Palo Alto is a biking town, which as an Angelino has been hard to get used to.

So America, a lot of what influences your health has already been decided for you. If you live in an area that encourages walking, you will walk. If you live in San Francisco, you will walk up hills and you will walk down hills. If you live in Boulder you’ll likely bike, hike, ski, or snowboard – and that’s on a workday. If you live in Chicago you’re going to spend a lot of time trudging through and shoveling snow. If you live in a town like LA though, you will spend lots of time in your car.

My point is simply to point this out to you, so that you can discover ways to keep yourself fit. Hopefully you won’t have to move, no pun intended.

What is the transportation style where you live? Does it impact how much exercise you get? Can you come up with a strategy to get more exercise in your locale?

Dr. Lois
August 31, 2010

Note: This Perspectives Blog post is written by a Guest Blogger of DrGreene.com and is provided in order to offer a variety of thoughtful points of view. The opinions expressed on this Perspectives Blog post do not reflect the opinions of Dr. Greene or DrGreene.com. As such, Dr. Greene and DrGreene.com are not responsible for the accuracy of the information supplied. This post is used under Creative Commons License CC BY-ND 3.0.