The War on Cars

BONUS EPISODE: The Miracle Pill with Peter Walker

Added 2021-04-28 16:57:57 +0000 UTC

Hello Patreon supporters!

Everyone knows that physical activity is one of the keys to staying healthy, yet few people are able to get the proper amount of daily exercise recommended by health professionals. Around the world, 1.5 billion people are so inactive that they are at greater risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, specific types of cancer, arthritis, depression, dementia and many other health problems.

For solutions, some turn to exercise regimes that are impossible to sustain for anyone who’s not an elite athlete or gym rat, creating a vicious cycle where failure to stay fit or conform to societal definitions of health are seen as personal failings rather than the inevitable outcome of a world where activity has been largely engineered out existence. Jobs that keep people sitting at desks all day, cities designed for driving at the expense of walking and cycling, and a built environment which encourages people to be static all but guarantee poor health outcomes that can only be fixed at scale by governments, not individuals.

In this exclusive episode just for Patreon supporters of The War on Cars, journalist Peter Walker talks about his new book, The Miracle Pill: Why a Sedentary World is Getting It All Wrong, and argues that the solution to the crisis of inactivity — something he calls a “normalized catastrophe” — requires a new way of looking at the society we've constructed. Peter, who writes for The Guardian, joins Doug to discuss the pioneering researchers looking into the effects of increased activity, the origin of the pedometer, why BMI is an imperfect stand-in for health, and simple lifestyle changes that, if enacted on a large enough basis, would be like a miracle pill any pharmaceutical company would want to package and sell.

SHOW NOTES

Buy The Miracle Pill by Peter Walker or ask for it at your local library.

Pick up a copy of Peter’s previous book, How Cycling Can Save the World, and other great titles from our Bookshop.org page.

Read Peter Walker in The Guardian, including his old posts on the bike blog.

Check out new merchandise as well as our official coffee mug and “Cars Are Death Machines” stickers at The War on Cars store.