The Webb and Branco families have a lot in common. Both have two working parents, two children and two cars. Both live in residential neighbourhoods, in single-family homes with back yards. But their daily routines are different, largely because of the communities that surround them. And so are the ways they get exercise.

Lianne Phillipson-Webb is perfectly happy on days that her silver Toyota Sienna doesn’t leave the driveway of her west-end Toronto home. It means she’s taken her daughters to school, shopped and managed her home-based nutrition business the healthier way — on foot.

But the same features of her neighbourhood that make it easy to walk to Brownies or bike to the store have a flip side. The grid-patterned streets and high number of intersections also mean more traffic and parked cars and fewer green spaces. You won’t find kids on the roadway in front of her house playing hockey or jumping rope. And she isn’t ready to let her daughters, Logan, 8, and Hadley, 6, make the journey to school alone.

“The walking is fantastic,” says Phillipson-Webb, 40. “But I don’t feel we’re quite there yet from the road safety standpoint.”

About 10 kilometres to the west, Michelle Pensa Branco grabs her car keys when she needs to pick up milk or return a movie. Her kids get on the school bus each morning , and she hops in the car to fetch them at the end of the day. Even at the neighbourhood school that’s within walking distance of many households, the cars are lined up every morning so parents can drop their kids en route to work.

Residents of the Mississauga subdivision stroll with their dogs and strollers around the meandering streets. “But it’s definitely not efficient for walking to the library or the grocery store,” says Pensa Branco, 34. “No one goes anywhere without a car.”

Her children, on the other hand, are always outside, romping around the quiet crescent with their friends, pulling each other in the wagon or chasing the dog. Most weekends, the family of four goes hiking in a nearby forest. In the summer, they amble to a park for picnic suppers, where Mom and Dad relax on a blanket while Isabelle, 7, and Thomas, 4, explore and get covered in dirt.

Since she no longer has toddlers to chase, “I don’t think I’m as physically active as I could be,” says Pensa Branco, a lactation consultant who works from home.

“But now that the kids are more independent outside, they are probably more active.”

Their daily experiences illustrate some of the complexities of how the “built environment” affects the health of Canadian families. Not only does the surrounding landscape have a major influence on physical activity levels, it also affects adults and children in different and sometimes conflicting ways.

“It’s extremely complicated,” says Ian Janssen, professor of kinesiology and epidemiology at Queen’s University.

Studies have shown that areas like the Webbs’, with well-connected streets and a high density of intersections, promote exercise among adults, who are more likely to walk or cycle to work or the green grocer.

But a recent study by Janssen and other Queen’s researchers suggests high street connectivity has the opposite effect on children. That’s because dense, busy neighbourhoods aren’t as conducive to unsupervised play or kids roaming up and down sidewalks on rollerblades or scooters.

“Where houses are crammed, yards are small and there’s more traffic, there may be no place for kids to play,” says Janssen. “Whereas if you have a quiet cul-de-sac it becomes a playground.”

Those zones can become hotbeds for road hockey, dodgeball and skipping ropes.

The report, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, used data from a 2006 survey of school-aged children from grades 6 through 10 (ages 11 to 15). It looked at the physical activity patterns of 8,535 students from 180 schools across Canada, and then compared it to the 5-kilometre area surrounding each school.

The study found that youth in the neighbourhoods of highest density and most connectivity between streets were less likely to be physically active outside school.

Many factors determine how much exercise children get, including access to organized sports, whether parents can afford them and family attitudes regarding fitness. However, the Queen’s research was noteworthy because it demonstrated how street connectivity appears to have opposite effects on adults and kids.

Urban planners need to consider a range of options “to promote physical activity in all age groups,” the study concluded.

Understanding the complexities of how urban planning affects physical fitness has drawn huge interest over the past five years, in line with mounting and widespread health concerns about the next generation.

Obesity rates among children have tripled in the last three decades and doubled in adults, leading to a jump in diabetes and other health conditions.

According to Statistics Canada, only 15 per cent of adults are getting the minimum 150 minutes a week of exercise recommended by Health Canada. It’s even worse for children, with only 7 per cent of kids ages 6 through 19 getting the hour a day they need.

Screens are the biggest culprits, creating a culture where youth spend more time on couches than climbing a tree or kicking a ball. But there’s no question the built environment also plays a major role.

According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, 12 per cent of Canadians’ trips to the grocery store, work, the library or school are on foot or by bicycle, compared with 46 per cent in the Netherlands, where urban design and policies encourage active transportation.

Canadian municipalities were awarded a D-minus for their planning efforts in the 2011 annual report card on child and youth physical activity conducted by Active Healthy Kids Canada.

But urban planning solutions aren’t black and white, as the Queen’s study illustrates, and a lot more research is needed, notes Stephanie Prince Ware of the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa.

People’s perceptions of how easy or difficult it is to access green space, for example, can be as powerful as the reality. The parental role model is also important.

“If your parents walk, you’re much more likely to ride your bike and think about walking to get somewhere,” says Prince Ware, a PhD candidate in population health.

While the Webb girls may not be racing around their streets, the community of walking caregivers often congregates at the playground after school while the kids turn cartwheels and play on the climber. Phillipson-Webb has met local parents and runs with a group of friends twice a week.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Janssen of Queen’s says a logical solution for new housing developments is to create the best of both worlds — quiet suburban street designs with walkways that provide easy access to schools, parks and amenities.

But those are the kinds of urban planning details that need to be researched and thought out ahead of time.

Most people still don’t choose their neighbourhood based on how it will affect their fitness levels. But the more they become conscious of the landscape around them and how it affects their health, the more likely they will be to push for the kinds of changes that may make a difference to how and where the next generation lives.

Rate your neighbourhood

Here are some questions to consider when assessing whether your community design encourages physical activity:

• Are homes connected to stores and services by sidewalks and/or walkways?

• Are there sidewalks on both sides of the street? Are they continuous, in good repair, and wide enough for strollers or more than one person?

• Do streets form a grid pattern with short blocks that make routes more direct?

• Are culs-de-sac and circular streets linked by walkways?

• Are there bike paths and lanes to key destinations?

• Are public transit stops in easy walking distance? Is service frequent? Are there bus shelters?

• Are homes in walking distance of stores, services, schools, parks, recreational facilities and workplaces?

• Is there a mix of residential, business, stores and schools?

• Is there a mix of housing such as apartments, townhomes, single family dwellings?

• Are walking routes attractive and well maintained?

• Are routes not broken up by too many vacant spaces like parking lots or empty buildings?

• Are there benches or other resting places along the way?

The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada has a built environment toolkit to help those interested in making their neighbourhoods more physically active. For the full package, visit http://www.heartandstroke.com/atf/cf/%7B99452D8B-E7F1-4BD6-A57D-B136CE6C95BF%7D/BETK_HSF_Built_Environments_ENG.pdf