• There are two kinds of household in Britain - those with a car (81%) and those without (19%). • There are two kinds of car-owning household in Britain - those that need a car, and those that don't. • There are two kinds of car-owner in Britain - those that are healthy, and those that are fat bastards.
A report published yesterday by the Institute for European Environmental Policy sheds light on just how fat the UK's car drivers are becoming. It's their own fault, apparently, for sitting behind the wheel of a car when previously they might have walked somewhere. Passing your driving test and buying a car is a one-way ticket to obesity, so they say. Drivers, on average, walk approximately half as far every year as adults in non-car households. And that difference adds up. Here's how...
» The average car owner walks 141 miles a year (680 yards a day) » The average non car-owner walks 272 miles a year (1310 yards a day) » The difference between the two equates to approximately 8 minutes walking each day
» The average car driver burns 14 kcal in 8 minutes (105 kilocalories an hour) » The average pedestrian burns 40 kcal in 8 minutes (300 kilocalories an hour) » The difference between the two equates to approximately 26 kcal each day
» So the average car owner burns 26 fewer kilocalories every day than the average non-car owner » That's 3500 fewer kilocalories every 19 weeks (equivalent to one pound of fat) » That's an extra 2¾ pounds of fat every year (equivalent to one extra stone every 5 years)
All this additional driving is creating a slow but inexorable increase in the nation's collective waistline. Drivers risk piling on an extra stone of fat every five years, just because they don't walk as far as they could. Over a 30 year period this adds up to nearly six stone, which is an awful lot of wobbly belly. A little less exercise every day over a very long period of time is helping car drivers to evolve into fat bastards. So it says in the report. Thank goodness I sold my car when I moved to London, otherwise I'd probably be a fat bastard too by now.
There are plenty more figures in the report, all 75 pages of it. Here are a few choice selected statistics, comparing now to 30 years ago, just to show what a nation of fat bastard car drivers we're becoming.
1975
2005
Adults in car-owning households
59%
81%
Adults with driving licences
49%
72%
Number of private cars registered
12 million
27 million
Journeys of less than 1 mile made on foot
86%
76%
Average distance walked (per year)
248 miles
169 miles
Average time spent walking (per week)
1hr 40m
1hr 17m
Percentage of adults who are obese
6%
24%
So, car drivers of Britain, take heed. Your future waistline is in your own hands. You'd better start parking your vehicle at the end of the road and walking the last bit home. Or sell the damned thing and throw yourself at the mercy of public transport. Because you don't want to end up a fat bastard in 30 years time, do you?
