How we live and move impacts our health. Over a period of decades, we have removed physical activity from people’s lives including designing communities that require the use of cars. Currently, obesity and physical inactivity cost the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area (GTHA) $4 billion a year. Diabetes-related medical costs attributable to inactivity are over $550 million each year with over 12,500 new cases of diabetes occurring annually due to inactivity.
Building our communities and lives with the motor vehicle at their centre have not only contributed to inactivity, but have resulted in the longest commute times in Canada with an annual economic cost of $6 billion in lost productivity. Furthermore, traffic-related air pollution is responsible for over 850 premature deaths a year and thousands of hospitalizations. Read more.
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