Does Urban Design Influence Physical Activity in the Reduction of Obesity? A Review of Evidence

Abstract Obesity has risen progressively over the past three decades, and is a major health problem around the world. Biological, psychological, behavioural, and social factors are unable to fully explain or limit the obesity outbreak. Therefore, questions arise about whether a well-designed built environment (BE) can enhance desire and opportunity for physical activities including incidental exercise and recreation in the local community. Many studies in public health have confirmed that physical activity (PA) can help prevent obesity and PA has become a public health priority in modern societies. With individual policies often failing to encourage PA, there has been much focus upon various ecological models that emphasise importance of the BE in promoting PA. Structure and quality of the BE can influence the need, the desire or the opportunity for people to walk, cycle and undertake PA as part of daily routine, incidental exercise for recreation. Thus, the question arises whether urban design being a multidimensional design tool could help improve the BE of neighbourhoods and encourage PA. This paper aims to review evidence related to the influence of conceptual urban design qualities in the improvement of PA and to summarise guidelines to promote PA through these qualities. The method adopted to address this aim involves a content analysis of available academic literature, with focus on the public health, planning, transport and urban design fields. The findings demonstrate that in spite of some contradictory evidence, many studies have confirmed that good urban design qualities can play a partial role in encouraging PA.