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The association between neighborhood economic hardship, the retail food environment, fast food intake, and obesity: findings from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin

BACKGROUND: Neighborhood-level characteristics such as economic hardship and the retail food environment are assumed to be correlated and to influence consumers’ dietary behavior and health status, but few studies have investigated these different relationships comprehensively in a single study. Thi...

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Autores principales: Laxy, Michael, Malecki, Kristen C, Givens, Marjory L, Walsh, Matthew C, Nieto, F Javier
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4409709/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25885908
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-1576-x
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author Laxy, Michael
Malecki, Kristen C
Givens, Marjory L
Walsh, Matthew C
Nieto, F Javier
author_facet Laxy, Michael
Malecki, Kristen C
Givens, Marjory L
Walsh, Matthew C
Nieto, F Javier
author_sort Laxy, Michael
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Neighborhood-level characteristics such as economic hardship and the retail food environment are assumed to be correlated and to influence consumers’ dietary behavior and health status, but few studies have investigated these different relationships comprehensively in a single study. This work aims to investigate the association between neighborhood-level economic hardship, the retail food environment, fast food consumption, and obesity prevalence. METHODS: Linking data from the population-based Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (SHOW, n = 1,570, 2008–10) and a commercially available business database, the Wisconsin Retail Food Environment Index (WRFEI) was defined as the mean distance from each participating household to the three closest supermarkets divided by the mean distance to the three closest convenience stores or fast food restaurants. Based on US census data, neighborhood-level economic hardship was defined by the Economic Hardship Index (EHI). Relationships were analyzed using multivariate linear and logistic regression models. RESULTS: SHOW residents living in neighborhoods with the highest economic hardship faced a less favorable retail food environment (WRFEI = 2.53) than residents from neighborhoods with the lowest economic hardship (WRFEI = 1.77; p-trend < 0.01). We found no consistent or significant associations between the WRFEI and obesity and only a weak borderline-significant association between access to fast food restaurants and self-reported fast food consumption (≥2 times/week, OR = 0.59-0.62, p = 0.05-0.09) in urban residents. Participants reporting higher frequency of fast food consumption (≥2 times vs. <2 times per week) were more likely to be obese (OR = 1.35, p = 0.06). CONCLUSION: This study indicates that neighborhood-level economic hardship is associated with an unfavorable retail food environment. However inconsistent or non-significant relationships between the retail food environment, fast food consumption, and obesity were observed. More research is needed to enhance methodological approaches to assess the retail food environment and to understand the complex relationship between neighborhood characteristics, health behaviors, and health outcomes. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-015-1576-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-44097092015-04-26 The association between neighborhood economic hardship, the retail food environment, fast food intake, and obesity: findings from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin Laxy, Michael Malecki, Kristen C Givens, Marjory L Walsh, Matthew C Nieto, F Javier BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Neighborhood-level characteristics such as economic hardship and the retail food environment are assumed to be correlated and to influence consumers’ dietary behavior and health status, but few studies have investigated these different relationships comprehensively in a single study. This work aims to investigate the association between neighborhood-level economic hardship, the retail food environment, fast food consumption, and obesity prevalence. METHODS: Linking data from the population-based Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (SHOW, n = 1,570, 2008–10) and a commercially available business database, the Wisconsin Retail Food Environment Index (WRFEI) was defined as the mean distance from each participating household to the three closest supermarkets divided by the mean distance to the three closest convenience stores or fast food restaurants. Based on US census data, neighborhood-level economic hardship was defined by the Economic Hardship Index (EHI). Relationships were analyzed using multivariate linear and logistic regression models. RESULTS: SHOW residents living in neighborhoods with the highest economic hardship faced a less favorable retail food environment (WRFEI = 2.53) than residents from neighborhoods with the lowest economic hardship (WRFEI = 1.77; p-trend < 0.01). We found no consistent or significant associations between the WRFEI and obesity and only a weak borderline-significant association between access to fast food restaurants and self-reported fast food consumption (≥2 times/week, OR = 0.59-0.62, p = 0.05-0.09) in urban residents. Participants reporting higher frequency of fast food consumption (≥2 times vs. <2 times per week) were more likely to be obese (OR = 1.35, p = 0.06). CONCLUSION: This study indicates that neighborhood-level economic hardship is associated with an unfavorable retail food environment. However inconsistent or non-significant relationships between the retail food environment, fast food consumption, and obesity were observed. More research is needed to enhance methodological approaches to assess the retail food environment and to understand the complex relationship between neighborhood characteristics, health behaviors, and health outcomes. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-015-1576-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2015-03-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4409709/ /pubmed/25885908 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-1576-x Text en © Laxy et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Laxy, Michael
Malecki, Kristen C
Givens, Marjory L
Walsh, Matthew C
Nieto, F Javier
The association between neighborhood economic hardship, the retail food environment, fast food intake, and obesity: findings from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin
title The association between neighborhood economic hardship, the retail food environment, fast food intake, and obesity: findings from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin
title_full The association between neighborhood economic hardship, the retail food environment, fast food intake, and obesity: findings from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin
title_fullStr The association between neighborhood economic hardship, the retail food environment, fast food intake, and obesity: findings from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin
title_full_unstemmed The association between neighborhood economic hardship, the retail food environment, fast food intake, and obesity: findings from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin
title_short The association between neighborhood economic hardship, the retail food environment, fast food intake, and obesity: findings from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin
title_sort association between neighborhood economic hardship, the retail food environment, fast food intake, and obesity: findings from the survey of the health of wisconsin
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4409709/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25885908
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-1576-x
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