Determinants of active commuting

Abstract

In this issue of Preventive Medicine Bringolf-Isler et al. (Bringolf-Isler et al., 2008) report on factors associated with active commuting to school in more than 1000 children aged 6–14 years in a German-speaking, a French-speaking, and a bilingual area in Switzerland. This study design naturally allows for separating cultural from other determinants of selftransportation. Switzerland may be a small country with a socio-economically homogenous population but it nevertheless has different language regions with subtle differences in culture. Active commuting to school of children is still the rule in Switzerland (on average 78% in this study), which is high compared to some other countries, and probably reflects a high perceived safety by parents of the way to school (63% of parents judged the way to school sufficiently safe). But, as in other countries, childhood obesity is on the rise in Switzerland and there are indications that active commuting to school is decreasing.