Relationship between neighborhood characteristics and prevalence of obesity in adolescents with disabilities

A successful approach to reducing child obesity and its comorbidities must embrace understanding of community-level factors including the social, built, and natural environments. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and prevalence of obesity in adolescents with disabilities. A national sample of 742 parents and their children aged 12-18 yrs with a physical or cognitive disability completed an online survey on health, lifestyles, and community accessibility. The majority of youth were male (64%), White (83%), overweight or obese (67%) with a mean age of 14.9±2.1 (yr). 32% of subjects used wheelchair. The most frequent primary disability types included autism (23%), cerebral palsy (17%), intellectual disability (13%), and Down syndrome (12%). 67% and 40% of participants also reported having a 2nd and 3rd cause of disability, respectively. One-third of parents were somewhat (19%) or very much (14%) concerned about crime in the area in which they live. Almost 65% of parents were either somewhat (25%) or very much (38%) concerned about traffic safety in their neighborhoods. There were small but positive correlations between parent's level of concern about neighborhood crime and child's BMI (r=0.09, p=0.01) and ‘time teen spends on computer on typical school days' (r=0.07, p=0.05). Not surprising, child BMI was also positively correlated with self-reported hours spent watching TV (r=0.11, p=0.02) and playing video games (r=0.18, p=0.002). The constraints of neighborhood characteristics attributed to sedentary lifestyles may be an important factor in the higher prevalence of obesity in adolescent with disabilities.