Overweight Children: Assessing the Contribution of the Neighborhood Environment

Objective: To examine the effect of the neighborhood environment on the prevalence of overweight and at risk of overweight status in children and adolescents. Methods: Analyses were based on 1,117 girls and 1,100 boys aged 5-18 and their primary care givers who participated in the second wave of the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Data collected included measures of neighborhood environment, such as informal social control, ease of identifying strangers (anonymity), safety of walking after darkness, and physical environment of the neighborhood. Additionally, we merged individual level data to census tract and county level data on economic disadvantage, crime, and density of food stores and restaurants. We analyzed the effect of these neighborhood factors on the likelihood of being overweight or at risk of overweight using logistic regressions. We controlled for a variety of characteristics, including age, race, ethnicity, education of parents, income, wealth, and mother's body mass index. Results: Preliminary findings suggest living in a low or medium physical condition neighborhood is associated with a 56-95 percent increase in relative odds of being overweight relative to living in a high physical condition neighborhood for both genders. There were no significant effects for economic disadvantage, crime, density of food stores and restaurants, neighborhood anonymity, and informal social control. Discussion: The results of this study demonstrate the importance of the built environment of the neighborhood for weight status of children and adolescents. Additional studies are needed to clarify the underlying mechanism behind this association.