{"id":232107,"date":"2025-07-02T13:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T13:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/232107\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T13:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T13:37:09","slug":"chris-whitty-says-culture-war-coverage-of-cycling-could-harm-nations-health-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/232107\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Whitty says culture-war coverage of cycling could harm nation\u2019s health | Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

Culture war-based coverage of cycling based on stereotypes of middle-aged men in Lycra could harm the nation\u2019s health because it shifts focus away from the people and communities who benefit from physical activity, Chris Whitty<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n

Speaking a day before the launch of the NHS\u2019s 10-year-health plan, which is expected to focus heavily on prevention<\/a>, the chief medical officer for England called on people to set aside media cliches and instead focus on \u201cdata which nobody can dispute\u201d.<\/p>\n

If active travel \u201cis seen as something which is simply the reserve of middle-aged, Lycra-clad people cycling possibly too fast around the park, that completely misses the point of actually where the huge health gains are\u201d, Whitty told a conference in York.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThere are some areas where you can send a debate from a cultural war into a much more day-to-day one by actually saying, \u2018OK guys, but this is the maths,\u2019 and ensuring that you do so with facts which people find surprising.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for example, the culture wars will always try and paint the person who\u2019s in favour of active transport, and let\u2019s say cycling, as middle-class, entitled, speeding like a bad person. What they don\u2019t see is a woman in a wheelchair who actually benefits even more from the activity that we\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being more active, Whitty said, was \u201cone of the most impressive things you can do to preserve health of all forms, physical and mental\u201d. He added that the best way for people to do this was to build it into their everyday life, for example by walking, cycling or wheeling for transport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who benefit most from any form of activity are people who are doing none,\u201d Whitty said. \u201cAnd the next group who benefit most are the people who are doing a very small amount, who might do a bit more.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second group of people who benefit most are those who are teetering on the brink of ill health, or are in ill health which could accelerate from under them. And for many of those people, a small amount of activity is going to be very hard work, but it is going to be remarkably powerful at preventing and in many cases, reversing the health conditions they have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transport planners should not just focus on bigger projects such as bike lanes, but also on everyday issues such as uneven pavements, which might put off someone with mobility issues from walking a short distance, Whitty said.<\/p>\n

To get more people active, he said, \u201cwhat we\u2019ve got to do is build between the places people care about: from their homes to their shops, to their place of worship, to the school and so on. We\u2019ve got to think about that in a really serious way.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a sign that politics has begun to move on from the culture war-infused transport discourse<\/a> under Rishi Sunak\u2019s government, 12 of England\u2019s regional mayors, including two Conservatives and one from Reform UK, have signed up<\/a> to a plan to create a \u201cnational active travel network\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking alongside Whitty, the junior transport minister Simon Lightwood said the Labour government took a different approach to Sunak: \u201cGone are the days, I hope, of this poisonous rhetoric around the war on the motorist.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Culture war-based coverage of cycling based on stereotypes of middle-aged men in Lycra could harm the nation\u2019s health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-232107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114783914804474054","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}