No, it's not cultural. Most of the UK outside of the Greater London area and a select few major cities are pretty car-dependent.
Cities by rank: least to most car dependent
1 London
2 Brighton and Hove
3 Nottingham
4 Cambridge
5 Southampton
6 Plymouth
7 Manchester
8 Liverpool
9 Newcastle
10 Bristol
11 Derby
12 Dudley
13 Leicester
14 Swindon
15 Birmingham
16 Sheffield
17 Coventry
18 Sunderland
19 Gateshead
20 Leeds
21 Bradford
22 Luton
23 Milton Keynes
24 Colchester
24 Peterborough
26 Wigan
You could say the same for every single European country.
Actually, the UK is less car dependent than most. They have less cars per capita than Italy, France, Germany, Spain, etc..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita
You claimed suburban sprawl and car dependency was the culprit behind obesity. The UK has neither of those (less so than many of their European counterparts) yet they're just as overweight as Americans or Australians.
You also claim that medium density public transport-friendly living makes people more active. The British are very inactive despite having both of these. More inactive than either Australia or the US.
Any why list UK cities by car dependency without comparing them to mainland European cities?
This makes no sense at all. Did poor people just come into existence recently? Why were they not obese 20 years ago? There has been a notable increase in obesity that correlates with the continued expansion of the urban growth boundaries in major Australian cities. Rich people are much more likely to live in desireable, walkable, mixed-use areas. Poor people live in whatever's left over.
No, poor people existed 20 years ago. If you look at obesity/weight statistics, you'll also notice that overweight and obese people existed too.
We have been getting larger and larger every decade since junk food became affordable. I'm 30 and I remember a LOT of overweight children from my childhood. In my mother's time is was uncommon because the cost of junk food was prohibitive. Children are now even more overweight and obese than they were when I was a child as junk food has only gotten more affordable and the culture of eating junk food on a daily basis more accepted.
A lot of those overweight children I went to school with are now those obese adults we hear about it statistics. Likewise, some of those skinny children my mother went to school with 50 years ago are now obese adults.
Lower socioecomonic groups are the most likely be overweight or obese just as they're more likely to drink heavily or smoke cigarettes. It's just a fact in Australia.
Even within one city, compare two suburbs with iffy public transport - one which is a middle class to wealthy suburb, the other being a low income suburb - which do you think will be heavier on average?
Also, you're wrong about rich people intrinsically wanting to live in walkable areas. A few decades ago our inner city areas were considered undesirable and wealthier types were flocking to the safety of the suburbs. The inner city is trendy thanks to 'gentrification' and several property booms, but it wasn't always so.
In the US, some cities followed our pattern of inner city gentrification whilst others had the doughnut effect - the wealthy fled to the suburbs leaving the inner city a ghetto. In some US cities, the last thing you'd want to do is 'walk' it
I don't have the link on me atm, but I came across a study a while back which compared two groups of people and found that even though they consumed a good amount of food, the group that was active put on the least amount of weight. Inactivity contributes more to weight gain than diet. Have you seen some of the popular local cuisine in places like the Netherlands? It doesn't seem to impact their weight too much though as cycling is very popular.
A study that says that being more active burns more calories than being inactive? Remarkable.
Interesting article. It would have been good to include the entire list rather than snippets though.
The format is annoying but if you flick through the slideshow it has Turkey and Italy (2 countries you used as examples of active nations) making the top 25 least active countries. Neither the US or Australia got a shout out. Malta, Spain, Portugal and the UK also made the list - all medium density countries.