The effect of healthy food accessibility on childhood obesity

The United States is facing an epidemic of childhood obesity, with obesity rates amongst children more than double what they were just 20 years ago. At the same time, research on the accessibility of healthy foods, especially in urban areas, has shown that certain populations are facing major barriers to a healthy diet. While there has been research on both the health consequences of childhood obesity and the deterioration of accessibility to healthy foods, there has been relatively little research on the relationship between the two problems. This paper used a GIS based cluster analysis of Los Angeles County school level data on percentages of overweight 5^th graders to expose clusters of overweight children in the area. Each school was associated with a school polygon, which represented the geographical area that the school serves. These school polygons was used in the cluster analysis to locate areas with low accessibility to healthy foods. Several indicators was used to establish an accessibility value, including distance to closest supermarket and the number of supermarkets within walking distance. The relationship between clusters of overweight 5^th graders and low supermarket accessibility was then examined. The results of the analysis indicate that a negative relationship exists between distance from the closest supermarket and childhood overweight. These results indicate the need for further research focusing on a smaller, more homogenous study area, a different measure of accessibility, or perhaps a regression technique that allows for spatial variation of the regression coefficients such as geographically weighted regression.