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Neighborhood factors linked with obesity risk in adolescence
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Recent data show girls who live in neighborhoods with a greater abundance of food or service retail, including fast-food restaurants and supermarkets, or physical disorder, such as litter and graffiti, had a higher risk for obesity in adolescence.
Lindsay T. Hoyt, PhD, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the University of California, San Francisco and Berkley, and colleagues assessed neighborhood influences on obesity risk among 174 girls enrolled in the Cohort Study of Young Girls’ Nutrition, Environment and Transitions study. Study participants were aged 8 to 10 years at baseline and were followed for 4 years. Trained observers assessed four neighborhood scales: 1) food and service retail, including chain fast-food restaurants, supermarkets, other convenience food restaurants, laundry or dry cleaners, full-service restaurants and coffee shops; 2) recreation, including parks, walking or hiking trails, sports/playing fields, basketball courts or tennis courts; 3) walkability, such as street shoulders or wide outside lanes; and 4) physical disorder, including garbage, litter, broken glass on sidewalks or streets, and graffiti on buildings. Family socioeconomic status was determined from caregiver reports on household income and education level.
Lindsay T. Hoyt
Twenty-percent of study participants were black, 22% were Hispanic/Latina, 12% were Asian and 46% were non-Hispanic white. Fifty-five percent of girls lived in a household with at least one college-educated caregiver.
At baseline, study participants had a mean age of 9.3 years and most had not entered puberty yet. Mean BMI z score was 0.36±1.07 standard deviation (SD) above the national average, and 14% of study participants were considered obese.
When controlling for baseline BMI z score, pubertal development stage, race/ethnicity, number of street segments observed per girl, and year of outcome measure, results indicated food and service retail scale (OR=2.40; P<.001) and physical disorder scale (OR=2.53; P=.008) were predictors of increased odds of obesity during the 4-year transition from late childhood to early adolescence.
When controlling for family and neighborhood socioeconomic status, results indicated the risk for obesity in adolescence was 2.27-fold higher with each 1-SD increase on the food and service retail scale (95% CI, 1.42-3.61; P<.001). Similarly, the odds of being obese in adolescence were 2.41-fold higher for each 1-SD increase in neighborhood physical disorder (95% CI, 1.31-4.44; P<.005).
Walkability and recreation scales did not predict risk for obesity.
“In this prospective study, we found that girls who live in neighborhoods with increased access to food and service retailers and more physical disorder had a higher likelihood of becoming obese during the developmental transition from childhood to adolescence,” the researchers concluded.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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