Measuring Obesogenicity and Assessing Its Impact on Child Obesity: A Cross-Sectional Ecological Study for England Neighbourhoods

Both major influences on changing obesity levels (diet and physical activity) may be mediated by the environment, with environments that promote higher weight being denoted obesogenic. However, while many conceptual descriptions and definitions of obesogenic environments are available, relatively few attempts have been made to quantify obesogenic environments (obesogenicity). The current study is an ecological study (using area units as observations) which has as its main objective to propose a methodology for obtaining a numeric index of obesogenic neighbourhoods, and assess this methodology in an application to a major national dataset. One challenge in such a task is that obesogenicity is a latent aspect, proxied by observed environment features, such as poor access to healthy food and recreation, as well as socio-demographic neighbourhood characteristics. Another is that obesogenicity is potentially spatially clustered, and this feature should be included in the methodology. Two alternative forms of measurement model (i.e., models representing a latent quantity using observed indicators) are considered in developing the obesogenic environment index, and under both approaches we find that both food and activity indicators are pertinent to measuring obesogenic environments (though with varying relevance), and that obesogenic environments are spatially clustered. We then consider the role of the obesogenic environment index in explaining obesity and overweight rates for children at ages 10–11 in English neighbourhoods, along with area deprivation, population ethnicity, crime levels, and a measure of urban–rural status. We find the index of obesogenic environments to have a significant effect in elevating rates of child obesity and overweight. As a major conclusion, we establish that obesogenic environments can be measured using appropriate methods, and that they play a part in explaining variations in child weight indicators; in short, area context is relevant.