Is it that simple?  I think so!  Quite a few years go I went to Melbourne, Australia to meet the man who would become my husband.  He lived in an apartment in the city and while he was at work, I went shopping.  Every day I would walk to the supermarket to get what we needed for dinner and then I’d walk to a park or some other place for sightseeing.  Not only didn’t I diet, but you could say that I ate my way through Melbourne for those 4 weeks.  We didn’t have any scales so I kept moaning about how much weight I must be putting on.  I had dessert every night and sometimes I’d have a snack earlier in the day.

When I got back to Orlando I timidly got on the scales and I’d lost TWENTY POUNDS. I had convinced myself that I had brought “big clothes” that masked how much weight I was gaining.

So, if I put my experience back then into this argument, Ken Smith, the man who did the study for the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, was right.

When we decided to make our arrangment permanent we moved to a sprawling neighborhood where there was noplace to walk to and I put those 20 pounds right back on.

Perhaps governments around the world could address the obesity issue just by redefining how our communities are built.  Insist that neighborhoods are designed as small communities where walking is encouraged by making it pleasant.

I think if I move again, I’ll keep this in mind! I never want to be fat again.