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Features for Senior Citizens
Neighborhood Fear Factors May Contribute to Obesity
in Older People
Much higher chance of being obese
living in
worst neighborhoods
By Kelly Griffin, Contributing Writer
Health Behavior News Service
November 3, 2006 - Older adults living in disadvantaged urban
neighborhoods have an increased risk of obesity, a new study has found,
possibly due to fear caused by living in areas characterized by crime,
disorder and neglect.
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October 9, 2006 - We live in a world with many
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Features for Senior Citizens |
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There is almost a twofold higher chance that
youre going to be obese if you live in the worst neighborhoods, said
epidemiologist and lead author Thomas Glass, Ph.D., of Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health. Moreover, the risk is not something
that can be explained away by personal variables such as dietary intake,
tobacco use and household wealth.
The study appears in the current issue of the
American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Previous studies of environmental risk factors for
obesity have focused primarily on measures of food availability, such as
the concentration of fast food restaurants or barriers to physical
activity, such as the absence of sidewalks, parks and recreational
facilities.
To explore the link between stressors in the
environment and excess weight, Glass and colleagues looked at the
prevalence of obesity among 1,140 adults, age 50 to 70, residing in one
of 65 Baltimore neighborhoods.
The neighborhoods had varying levels of
environmental stress as measured by a scale of features that appeared to
promote heightened vigilance, fear or alarm.
Fear-inducing factors included visible signs of
disorder such as vacant houses and liquor stores, indicators of social
disorganization and poverty such as single-parent families and
unemployment and public safety measures such as violent crimes and 911
calls.
While the overall obesity rate in this population
was 38 percent, it ranged from a low of 27 percent in the least
hazardous neighborhoods to a high of 53 percent in the most hazardous
neighborhoods.
The explanation for higher obesity rates in the
disadvantaged neighborhoods couldnt be accounted for by simple
economics, Glass said, because after accounting for differences in diet
and exercise and other individual risk factors, obesity rates were not
different between impoverished and more affluent neighborhoods.
According to Kathy Sykes, senior advisor for the
Aging Initiative at the Environmental Protection Agency, this study adds
to a growing body of research that links the places people live with
health outcomes, particularly among older adults.
While healthy communities are important for people
of all ages, we know that this is especially needed for older adults,
Sykes said. It may be that there are major things going on in our
communities that play a bigger role in the obesity problem than simply
the fact that people are not eating right and exercising.
Glass said that the increasing prevalence of
obesity in the United States is unlikely to be reversed by
individual-level treatment approaches.
This is an environmental epidemic and its going
to require environmental solutions, he said. Restoring the health of
neighborhoods and communities in cities that have gone into disrepair is
something that were going to have to take more seriously.
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