The next Biggest Loser could be the Big Apple.
An environmental panel is telling the city to step it up by opening stairwells in all buildings, both public and private, to help New Yorkers stave off gaining a total of 550,000 pounds each year, according to a report released yesterday.
The fitness recommendation was among 111 suggestions in a study from a task force convened in July 2008 by Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to devise ways to make buildings more eco-friendly and promote fitness.
In its 600-plus-page study, the NYC Green Codes Task Force touts the city Department of Health model of increasing stair access and advises New Yorkers to use visible signs and transparent glass doors to attract building inhabitants to the stairwells.
“At a broad level, ‘green building’ is about rethinking how buildings function. We don’t want them to make us unhealthy,” said Russell Unger, who chaired the task force.
“Buildings are actually very important to the amount of exercise we do, and over the past century, fossil fuels [and technology] have replaced human power. Where we once walked up stairs, we now take an elevator. Where we once played outside, kids now play video games,” he added.
He referred to building stairwells as “a dark, secondary afterthought” built in case of fire.
The cost of promoting stairs would be minimal to city building owners, according to the report, which asked major contractor Bovis Lend Lease for an estimate.
While stair climbing would combat obesity — helping to prevent 18 percent of the city’s average annual weight gain — decreased elevator trips would also reduce electrical usage, the report says.
City Health Commissioner Thomas Farley opened stairwells in DOH buildings when he took over in May 2009.
The task force presented its recommendations to the city in hopes of eventually getting all the ideas codified into city law.
The city also reported increased stair usage in several buildings where signs were hung that read “Burn Calories, Not Electricity. Take the Stairs!” in May 2008.
The study out yesterday also recommends holding doors open with magnets that release the doors in case of a smoke warning. This would require a change in the city’s building code.
The report also recommends laws that would require mold-resistant boards in bathrooms and improved designs for ventilation systems in new construction to save energy while preserving air quality.
Many of these recommendations are based on a citywide asthma hospitalization rate of just over 6 per 1,000 people, roughly double the national average of 3.1, according to the study.
Unger said the report was produced at no cost to the city.