Columbia non-motorized pilot project to be subject of research

MU researchers are taking advantage of a unique opportunity, provided by the city of Columbia's role in the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Program, to study how changes in infrastructure of a community can affect the physical activity behavior of its residents. The study is funded by a $200,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

"We are facing an obesity epidemic in our country," said Steve Sayers, assistant professor of physical therapy in the MU School of Health Professions. "Much of the problem can be linked to the sedentary lifestyle of modern society and our lack of physical activity."

Physical activity is vital in the prevention of obesity and chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, but over the past 50 years, physical activity has been engineered out of daily lifestyles, Sayers said. The ways in which cities are organized and built now favor motorized transportation and discourage physical activity. People no longer walk to school, work, the grocery store, or other places they go regularly.