The picture that accompanied the report ‘Four in 10 children overweight or obese’ (August 31) contained a paradox. It showed an overweight child standing on a road devoid of vehicles.
Of course, such roads do not exist in Malta. Unlike the idyllic scene in the picture, our roads are clogged with cars. We have a concentration of nearly a thousand motor vehicles per square kilometre (or 2,500 per square mile), arguably the highest on the planet.
We are also among the most-car dependent of populations. As the age-old saying goes: “Everything is connected”. This is about the connection between our road conditions and our childhood (and adult) obesity.
We have been hearing a lot about roads lately. This includes the destruction of virgin countryside to make space for car washes and petrol stations, felling of trees to widen roads and obliteration of urban open spaces for more car parks.
This is a mere extension of past decades of misguided transport policies which have turned our urban streets and roads into ‘traffic spaces’ and eroded their social function. What should have been ‘people spaces’ are now an unsafe environment for all, especially children and the old.
Solid foundations for car-lunacy and fossil fuel addiction were laid decades ago when Malta was a British colony and inherited Britain’s obsession with the car. But we remained immovably stuck in this 1950s time warp. To this day the car continues to be glamourised and enjoys an unprecedented status on our roads. Public transport remains on the low-priority back-burner.
We did get a disastrous big-banger called Arriva with a fleet of export-reject second-hand bendy-buses travelling on a network which seemed to have been designed on the back of an envelope, but things remained much the same.
Neither is there mention of provision for other road users; as ever, their special needs continue to be disregarded. Instead we are about to see fulfilment of a phenomenal vote-catching electoral manifesto item: Transport Malta is embarking on a huge road investment project with €700 million earmarked to ‘resurface all of Malta’s roads’.
By pandering solely to car transport, we are breeding future generations of individuals addicted to fossil fuel because they grow up knowing no better
All of this indicates that our present Transport Ministry is determined to perpetuate Malta’s private car fetish.
The so-called ‘Law of Induced Demand’ tells us that road improvements such as added traffic lanes, new roads, etc., are matched immediately by a proportionate increase in private car use. For example, if road capacity is increased by 10 per cent, then car traffic will increase by 10 per cent.
Thus road improvement ultimately results in more people opting for their car so that traffic congestion will remain at the same level. Traffic air pollution increases and the harm inflicted on our health escalates. Children and the aged are those most affected by the added pollution and our degraded road environment.
By pandering solely to car transport, we are breeding future generations of individuals addicted to fossil fuel because they grow up knowing no better. As long as hostile traffic conditions continue to exist on our roads, children will continue to be constrained by parental concern about road safety. They miss out on walking and (dare one mention it?) cycling – both of which are healthy, enjoyable physical activities.
Children are growing up isolated, over-protected and not engaging with the adult world or gaining independence. They do not learn about risk (avoidance) at an early age and, not having acquired any road sense, they might be expected to become reckless car drivers.
As long as alternative mobility options are ignored, we continue to establish an unhealthy vicious circle whereby successive generations will continue to grow conditioned to travelling unhealthily only by car. Hostile road conditions mean that children tend to stay indoors and mostly indulge in the next best thing to boredom – playing computer games or watching television.
It is an established fact that the hours spent by Maltese children passively watching television are the highest in Europe. This must be a contributory factor to the high prevalence of overweight and obesity among our children and youths
We are failing our children: “Until people perceive it as safer to send their kids to school by bike or on foot rather than to drive them, we have failed. Children should be allowed to make the street they live in their playground. We need streets designed for play and active travel.
We need cities that love cycling and encourage it rather than merely tolerate it, and local authorities should think imaginatively about how to offer affordable opportunities to people who lack the confidence or the means to join in.” (British Medical Journal).
Our children are growing unhealthily, exposed to excessive traffic pollution and lacking in physical exercise. Instead of acting as other countries which are implementing measures to decrease traffic, Malta intends doing the opposite and encouraging it.
The effect of this is not small; it is a bad recipe for the nation’s future health. It is simply unbelievable that our Health Department can stand by passively and see all this happening before their eyes. It is criminal.