A healthy start:
  Aiming to revive the walk to school
           
      Philadelphia Inquirer  March 28, 2000
      By Marian Uhlman, INQUIRER (Philadelphia) STAFF WRITER

      Maybe today's grown-ups really didn't walk 10 miles through three feet of
      snow to get to school. But they probably did walk - and that's something
      far fewer schoolchildren do today.

      Federal public-health officials are set to launch an initiative this
      spring to help revive the tradition. They see it as a logical way to
      increase daily exercise for legions of American children who have become
      heavier and more sedentary, and therefore at greater risk for future heart
      disease, diabetes and other health problems.

      Today, only about 10 percent of American children between ages 5 and 15
      walk to school - a figure that has plummeted from what some experts
      believe was more than 50 percent in the 1960s.

      Clearly, for the many children who live miles from school, walking is not
      an option. But even among those who live within a mile of school, less
      than 30 percent walk regularly, according to Department of Transportation
      data. While some are eligible for a school bus, most get rides from their
      parents or other adults.

      "Since when did it become natural for us to chauffeur our children place
      to place, from the time they are born until the time they get their
      driver's license?" asked Rich Killingsworth, a Centers for Disease Control
      and Prevention health scientist involved in the agency's
      KidsWalk-To-School initiative. "I view this transportation crisis as a
      fundamental public-health threat."

      CDC officials say the decline in walking and biking may have contributed
      to a doubling, since 1970, in the percentage of children and adolescents
      who are overweight. The rate went from 5.5 percent to 13.6 percent for
      children between ages 6 and 11, according to surveys assessing children's
      weight and height.

      One reason fewer children walk to and from school, of course, is parents'
      concern about their safety. Roads are busier. Sidewalks are often
      unavailable. Sprawl has put schools at a distance. Time-pressed parents
      find it easier to drive to school than to walk alongside their children,
      and jobs keep many of them from meeting their children at the end of the
      school day. Crime, or the thought of it, is also a deterrent.

      "I am an overprotective parent," said Joe Puliti, who shares with his wife
      driving duties for their sons to and from Manoa Elementary School in
      Havertown. "I want to make sure they get there safely."

      He walked the half-mile home with his sons on a recent sunny afternoon,
      making an exception to his more-convenient routine.

      Another Manoa parent, Lucy Salerno, was picking up her 6-year-old that day
      because she does not want the girl walking the half-mile to school alone.

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