Is Your Neighborhood Making You Fat?
Reported June 18, 2009
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Your neighborhood food joint can increase your risk of obesity.
A recent study from the University of Alberta, Canada, found that people living in an area with more fast food restaurants and convenience stores, rather than supermarkets and grocery stores, had higher obesity rates.
Researchers studied the associations between the ratios of the number of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores, to supermarkets and specialty food stores in a given radius around a person’s house, also known as the Retail Food Environment Index (RFEI), with levels of obesity. They found it correlates with the odds that a person may be obese.
The availability of fast food and scarcity of outlets for natural ingredients within about half a mile of a person’s home was shown to be associated with weight, while the RFEI within a one-mile radius did not have the same effect. The researchers claim this demonstrates proximity of the unhealthy restaurants and stores is an important risk factor for obesity.
SOURCE: BMC Public Health, 2009