Background
Obesity is a leading public health concern, and although environmental factors have
been hypothesized to play a role in the prevention of obesity, little empirical data
exist to document their effects. The purpose of this study was to examine whether
characteristics of the local food environment are associated with the prevalence of
cardiovascular disease risk factors.
Methods
A cross-sectional study of men and women participating in the third visit (1993–1995)
of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study was conducted in 2004. The
analyses included 10,763 ARIC participants residing in one of the 207 eligible census
tracts located in the four ARIC-defined geographic areas. Names and addresses of food
stores located in Mississippi, North Carolina, Maryland, and Minnesota were obtained
from departments of agriculture. Multilevel modeling was used to calculate prevalence
ratios of the associations between the presence of specific types of food stores and
cardiovascular disease risk factors.
Results
The presence of supermarkets was associated with a lower prevalence of obesity and
overweight (obesity prevalence ratio [PR]=0.83, 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.75–0.92;
overweight PR=0.94, 95% CI=0.90–0.98), and the presence of convenience stores was
associated with a higher prevalence of obesity and overweight (obesity PR=1.16, 95%
CI=1.05–1.27; overweight PR=1.06, 95% CI=1.02–1.10). Associations for diabetes, high
serum cholesterol, and hypertension were not consistently observed.
Conclusions
Results from this study suggest that characteristics of local food environments may
play a role in the prevention of overweight and obesity.
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© 2006 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
