Cities, states and U.S. health officials must redesign neighborhoods to get people to exercise more and avoid places that serve fattening food, the Dallas-based doctors’ group said in a statement in its journal Circulation. People will change their habits if fast-food restaurants are less convenient and if schools and jobs are easily accessible by walking or bicycling, it said.

About 67 million adults in the U.S. are obese, and another 75 million are overweight, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The best way to reduce obesity is to change daily habits, instead of relying on short-term diets, the heart association said.

“Right now, you have to be pretty single-minded to make some of these choices, such as walking or riding a bike instead of driving,” said Shiriki Kumanyika, chairwoman of the group that wrote the statement.

Making schools and jobs accessible to bicyclists and walkers will help people make healthy behaviors “normal” and displace the current ways of doing things,” said Kumanyika, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

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