Children’s car use is increasing. As a result of this, they are walking less. This has serious implications for their quantity of physical activity and consequently for their health. In this paper, findings are presented from a research project being carried out in the Centre for Transport Studies at University College London to examine these effects. A major element of the research involved fitting 200 children with portable motion sensors for a period of four days to measure their quantity of physical activity. In parallel with this, they kept travel and activity diaries, so that it was possible to establish how much energy they consumed in various activities, including walking. It is shown that walking to school for a week consumes more calories than one week’s worth of physical education (PE) and games lessons, and that children who walk to events tend to use more energy in participating in them than children who are driven by car. The effectiveness of a specific initiative to encourage children to shift from the car to walking, namely the walking bus, is examined in detail, and found to be effective in helping to achieve this objective
