Bicycles are Public Health

What comes to mind when someone asks you what public health is? A lot of people are not sure what to say when asked maybe because they are not exactly sure or maybe because there are too many things to say as an answer. Truthfully, public health is absolutely everywhere. The example that our group picked is a bicycle rack in a park. Bicycles themselves are a huge part of public health. Many people might ask how this is public health; we came up with two very important examples of how they are public health. First, bicycles are great for promoting physical activity. America’s obesity epidemic is a very serious problem with rates of about 30% being obese in the United States. One of the number one reasons why obesity is such a problem is because many Americans lack physical activity. Riding a bicycle is a great way to exercise and it helps one in becoming more physically active. The second reason our group came up with is pollution. Motor vehicles are one of the greatest contributors to pollution. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, motor vehicles have a huge impact on global warming. In riding a bike people will use their vehicles less, therefore lowering the amount of pollution they are putting into our atmosphere. It’s obvious that bicycles do not emit pollution, so it would be beneficial to the environment if more people used a bicycle as a means of transportation instead of motor vehicles. It was important to us to include the bike rack in our picture because we believe having bike racks will only help to promote people in riding bicycles; people need to know they have a safe place where they can leave their bike, otherwise no one would ride their bike.