The following is a chart that displays the walking, cycling and obesity rates in Europe, North America, and Australia. The purpose of this presentation is to explore whether there is a correlation between these three statistics.

The data originally compiled by Good.is, I created the following chart to better assimilate the data.

Obesity and its correlation with cycling and walking.

By looking at the chart though, I feel there is no correlation what so ever between walking or cycling and obesity rates. Take Germany for instance, a higher percentage of people in Germany walk or cycle to work. However, it has a high obesity rate next only to United States. Some countries such as Ireland while having a relatively small percentage of bikers and walkers still has a relatively low obesity rate in their country.

So my conclusion is obesity depends on a lot of factors which include the lifestyle of a populace in a country, their eating habits, and their occupation. If a person is essentially working behind a desk, chances are he gets less exercise each day than say a person whose job involves manual labour.

Riding a bicycle to work or walking definitely helps in keeping fit. But it cannot be correlated with the obesity levels in a country.

Bottom line : Walking, riding a bicycle, and your weight has little correlation what so ever.