LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:
One easy way to add exercise your day is to take the stairs. In fact, research shows that could stop the nation's weight gain. In New York City, some architects and city planners have taken up the challenge of getting more people to take the stairs. Flora Lichtman reports.
FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: If there's a single invention that helped shaped New York City, literally it might be the elevator.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: All the passengers do is push the buttons indicating their stops, and the cars do the rest automatically.
LICHTMAN: Along with steel-frame construction, the elevator allowed New York City to grow up.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Imagination staggers at the prospect.
LICHTMAN: But according to architect David Burney, former New York City commissioner of Design and Construction, it's time to celebrate the steps.
DAVID BURNEY: There was a time before the elevator when the staircase was a huge opportunity for architects. You know, three-dimensional space, the sort of sculptural quality of the stair. So we'd like to bring the staircase back.
LICHTMAN: Why the enthusiasm for the stairs? The answer is more medical than architectural. It's a public health campaign.
BURNEY: We as architects and planners, we've been part of the problem in terms of making our lives so sedentary, making things so easy. And there are ways that we can and should correct that.
LICHTMAN: The city wants more steps and more people to climb them because of the research showing health benefits to taking the stairs. Dr. Karen Lee.
KAREN LEE: It's a vigorous activity so, you know, it burns more calories per minute than jogging.
LICHTMAN: Dr. Lee advises the World Health Organization and governments on public health. She says a long-term study of 10,000 men found that...
LEE: Men who climbed 20 to 34 floors of stairs per week - that's about three to five floors a day - they had a 29 percent reduction in their risk of stroke.
LICHTMAN: Here's another piece of evidence - researchers calculated how many calories stair-climbing burns. An estimated...
LEE: If the average American adult was to climb just two minutes more of stairs per day, we could burn enough calories to offset the average annual weight gains that we see in American adults.
LICHTMAN: So most U.S. adults gain, on average, about a pound a year. And just two extra minutes of stair-climbing a day should prevent that gain.
New Yorkers confront the steps often, whether they like it or not. I counted five flights to get out of the Union Square subway stop.
But how do you get people to climb by choice? New York City's Department of Health has been hanging posters.
CHRISTINE JOHNSON: Our stair prompts are neon green, really eye-catching.
LICHTMAN: They tap into two classic New York motivators - guilt and vanity.
JOHNSON: And they say, burn calories - not electricity.
LICHTMAN: And that's Christine Johnson of NYC's Department of Health.
JOHNSON: We've distributed 30,000 stair prompts in over 1,000 buildings.
LICHTMAN: Not everyone can take the steps. There are people with disabilities, packages, strollers - but the campaign isn't just about the stairs. It's part of a bigger movement called active design.
JOHNSON: All new city buildings have to consider active design strategies.
LICHTMAN: The term was coined when New York City agencies came together a few years ago and created active design guidelines for architects.
JOANNA FRANK: We always say that this is not rocket science.
LICHTMAN: Joanna Frank runs the Center for Active Design, a city-funded nonprofit that promotes the guidelines.
FRANK: The actual individual strategies that we're advocating for are simple - so planting street trees, putting in a bench, closing off a small piece of street to create a plaza.
LICHTMAN: The idea is to build an environment that can help us expend energy, using architecture to promote health. And architect David Burney says it's been done before.
BURNEY: If you think about the history of disease like typhoid and tuberculosis and cholera, the lot of them were solved by changes in the built environment - so improve water supply, better sanitation. So actually, there's a strong relationship between architects and planners and public health.
LICHTMAN: Of course, unlike new pipes, in the case of stairs people have to play along. And I wonder how you provide not just the opportunity, but also encourage the cultural shift?
BURNEY: Yes, that's a good question. And I think we're not asking people to go to the gym every day. We're trying to do this in a way that's seamless.
LICHTMAN: And there are good examples of this all over New York City. On the way back from the Center for Active Design, I stopped by Grand Central Station with Joanna Frank. We stood in the station's atrium with its 125-foot high ceilings and marble floors.
And we're looking out at, I think, some of the most iconic steps in New York City.
FRANK: Absolutely. I mean, they're so prominent. See, they're marble. They're very wide, brass handrails in the classic architecture of about a hundred years ago. And they're in constant use.
LICHTMAN: And we both remarked, we don't even know where the elevators are. For NPR News, I'm Flora Lichtman.
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