Children Living in Neighborhoods Close to Healthy Food Outlets Have Low Obesity Risk: Study

Children who live in neighborhoods having retail stores and outlets that sell healthy food are less likely to be obese, finds a study.

Australian researchers found the children's accessibility to food outlets, restaurants and stores plays a huge role in determining their risk for obesity and unhealthy weight gain. Their study looked at 1,850 children aged between five and 15 living in Perth, Australia and recorded the distance from home to the nearest store that sells healthy food. The experts also recorded other variables like age, physical activity, time spent remaining inactive, the frequency of eating take-out meals in a week and socio-economic status of neighborhood.

Eateries and fast food chains like McDonalds, Chinese or Thai restaurants, fish-and-chips shops, burger joints and pizzerias were considered as unhealthy food outlets, while supermarkets, fruits and vegetable shops were coded as healthy food outlets. The experts believe when people eat fast food and junk snacks sold in popular food chains they have lesser control over the proportion of fattening ingredients consumed. Therefore, it was easier to monitor the risk of obesity based on the intake of food sold in these outlets.  

It was observed that children who lived in areas having at least one healthy food store within half a mile had 38 percent less susceptibility for obesity and weight increase. Their risk rates further decreased by 19 percent for additional healthy food outlets opened in the neighborhood.

"This study provides a sense of the associations between neighborhood food stores and restaurants relative to self-reported height and weight in Australian children," said Penny Gordon-Larsen, co-author and professor of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in a news release.

"The work confirms findings from several studies in other locations, such as the U.S., Europe, and Canada, among other countries. It is important to note that the literature in this area is quite mixed, likely because of the complexity of the association between neighborhood food stores, diet, and body weight," she adds.

More information is available online in the American Journal of Health Promotion.