Obesity and Diabetes, the Built Environment, and the ‘Local’ Food Economy

Matthew, Salois (2010): Obesity and Diabetes, the Built Environment, and the ‘Local’ Food Economy.

Abstract

Obesity and diabetes are increasingly attributed to environmental factors, however, little attention has been paid to influence of the 'local' food economy. This paper examines the association of measures relating to the built environment and the ‘local’ food economy with county-level prevalence of obesity and diabetes. Key indicators of the ‘local’ food economy include the density of farmers’ markets, volume of direct farm sales, and presence of farm-to-school programs. This paper employs a robust regression estimator to account for non-normality of the data and to accommodate outliers. Overall, the built environment is strongly associated with prevalence of obesity and diabetes and a strong 'local' food economy may play an important role in prevention. Results imply considerable scope for community-level interventions.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: community-level intervention; diabetes; food environment; farmers market; leverage points; local food; robust regression; obesity; outliers
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C1 - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General > C10 - General; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I12 - Health Behavior; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I10 - General; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q18 - Agricultural Policy ; Food Policy

References

Adams DC, Salois MJ. 2010. Local versus organic: a turn in consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 25(4): 331-341.

Anliker JA, Winnie M, Drake LT. 1992. An evaluation of the Connecticut Farmers' Market coupon program. Journal of Nutrition Education 24: 185-191.

Balsam A, Webber D, Oehlke B. 1994. The Farmers' Market Coupon Program for low-income elders. Journal of Nutrition for the Elderly 13: 35-42.

Block JP, Scribner RA, DeSalvo KB, 2004. Fast food, race/ethnicity, and income: a geographic analysis. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 27(3): 211-7.

Boardman JD, Saint Onge JM, Rogers RG, Denny JT. 2005. Race differentials in obesity: the impact of place. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 46(3): 229-43.

Briefel RR, Crepinsek MK, Cabili C, Wilson A, Gleason PM. 2009. School food environments and practices affect dietary behaviors of US public school children. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 109(2 Suppl): S91-107.

Brownson RC, Baker EA, Housemann RA, Brennan LK, Bacak, SJ 2001. Environmental and policy determinants of physical activity in the United States. American Journal of Public Health 91(12): 1995-2003.

Bustillos B, Sharkey JR, Anding J, McIntosh A.2009. Availability of more healthful food alternatives in traditional, convenience, and nontraditional types of food stores in two rural Texas counties. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 109(5): 883-9.

Chen S, Florax RJGM, Snyder S, Miller CC. 2010. Obesity and access to chain stores. Economic Geography 86(4): 431-452.

Chou S, Grossman M, Saffer H. 2004. An economic analysis of adult obesity: results from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Journal of Health Economics 23(3): 565-87.

Conrey EJ, O'Loughlin J, Masson P, et al. 2003. Integrated program enhancements increased utilization of farmers' market nutrition program. Journal of Nutrition 133(6): 1841-1844.

Courtemanche C, Carden A. 2010. Supersizing supercenters? The impact of Wal-Mart supercenters on body mass index and obesity. Journal of Urban Economics, In Press.

Davey Smith G, Brunner E. 1997. Socio-economic differentials in health: the role of nutrition. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 56(1A): 75-90.

Dehon C, Gassner M, and Verardi V. 2009. Beware of 'good' outliers and overoptimistic conclusions. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 71(3): 437-452.

Dowler E. 2001. Inequalities in diet and physical activity in Europe. Public Health Nutrition 4(2b): 701-709.

Drewnowski A. 2007. The real contribution of added sugars and fats to obesity. Epidemiologic Reviews 29(19): 160-71.

Egger G, Swinburn B. 2010. An "Ecological" Approach to the Obesity Pandemic. British Medical Journal 315(7106): 477-480.

Eid J, Overman HG, Puga D, Turner MA. 2008. Fat city: questioning the relationship between urban sprawl and obesity. Journal of Urban Economics 63(2): 385-404.

Elinder LS, Jansson M. 2009. Obesogenic environments--aspects on measurement and indicators. Public Health Nutrition 12(3): 307-15.

Ellaway A, Macintyre S, Bonnefoy X. 2005. Graffiti, greenery, and obesity in adults: secondary analysis of European cross sectional survey. British Medical Journal 331(7517): 606.

Ewing R, Schmid T, Killingsworth R, Zlot A, Raudenbush S. 2003. Relationship between urban sprawl and physical activity, obesity, and morbidity. American Journal of Health Promotion 18(1): 47-57.

Feng J, Glass TA, Curriero FC, Stewart WF, Schwartz BS. 2010. The built environment and obesity: a systematic review of the epidemiologic evidence. Health and Place 16(2): 175-90.

Giles-Corti B, Broomhall MH, Knuiman M, Collins C Douglas K, Ng K, et al. 2005. Increasing walking: how important is distance to, attractiveness, and size of public open space? American Journal of Preventive Medicine 28(2 Suppl 2): 169-76.

Hampel FR. 1971. A general qualitative definition of robustness. Annals of Mathematical Statistics 41(6): 1887-1896.

Hampel FR. 1974.The influence curve and it role in robust estimation. Journal of the American Statistical Association 69(346): 383-393.

Herman DR, Harrison GG, Afifi AA, Jenks E. 2008. Effect of a targeted subsidy on intake of fruits and vegetables among low-income women in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. American Journal of Public Health 98(1): 98-105.

Holsten JE. 2009. Obesity and the community food environment: a systematic review. Public Health Nutrition 12(3): 397-405.

Huber PJ. 1973. Robust regression: asymptotics, conjectures, and Monte Carlo. Annals of Statistics 1(5): 799-821.

Huber PJ. 1981. Robust Statistics. John Wiley & Sons: New York, NY.

Jeffery RW, Baxter J, McGuire M, Linde J. 2006. Are fast food restaurants an environmental risk factor for obesity? International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 3(2).

Kettle Kahn L, Sobush K, Keener D, Goodman K, Lowry A, Kekietek J, Zaro S. 2009. Recommended community strategies and measurements to prevent obesity in the United States. MMWR 58(RR-7): 1-26.

Larsen K, Gilliland J. 2009. A farmers' market in a food desert: Evaluating impacts on the price and availability of healthy food. Health and Place 15(4): 1158-62.

Lopez RP. 2007. Risk Factors and Chronic Disease Neighborhood Risk Factors for Obesity. Obesity 15(5): 2111-2119.

Lopez-Zetina J, Lee H, Friis R. 2006. The link between obesity and the built environment. Evidence from an ecological analysis of obesity and vehicle miles of travel in California. Health and Place 12(4): 656-64.

McGinnis JM, Nestle M. 1989. The Surgeon General's report on nutrition and health: policy implications and implementation strategies. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 49(1): 23-28.

Mehta NK, Chang VW. 2008. Weight status and restaurant availability a multilevel analysis. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 34(2): 127-33.

Mikkelsen L., Chehimi S. 2007. The Links Between the Neighborhood Food Environment and Childhood Nutrition. Preventive Institute.

Mobley LR, Root ED, Finkelstein EA, Khavjou O, Farris RP, Will JC. 2006. Environment, obesity, and cardiovascular disease risk in low-income women. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 30(4): 327-332.

Moore LV, Diez Roux AV. 2006. Associations of neighborhood characteristics with the location and type of food stores. American Journal of Public Health 96(2): 325-31.

Morland K, Diez Roux AV, Wing S. 2006. Supermarkets, other food stores, and obesity: the atherosclerosis risk in communities study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 30(4): 333-9.

Morland K, Wing S, Diez Roux A. 2002. The contextual effect of the local food environment on residents' diets: the atherosclerosis risk in communities study. American Journal of Public Health 92(11): 1761-7.

Morland KB, Evenson KR, 2009. Obesity prevalence and the local food environment. Health and Place 15(2): 491-5.

Nichol L. 2003. Local food production: some implications for planning. Planning Theory and Practice 4(4): 409-427.

Papas, MA, Alberg AJ, Ewing R, Helzlsouer KJ, Gary TL, Klassen AC. 2007. The built environment and obesity. Epidemiologic Reviews 29(27): 129-43.

Pereira MA, Kartashov AI, Ebbeling CB, Van Horn L, Slattery ML, Jacobs DR, Ludwig DS. 2005. Fast-food habits, weight gain, and insulin resistance (the CARDIA study): 15-year prospective analysis. Lancet 365(9453): 36-42.

Poortinga W. 2006. Perceptions of the environment, physical activity, and obesity. Social Science and Medicine 63(11): 2835-46.

Powell LM, Slater S, Mirtcheva D, Bao Y, Chaloupka FJ. 2007. Food store availability and neighborhood characteristics in the United States. Preventive Medicine 44(3): 189-95.

Rousseeuw PJ. 1984. Least median of squares regression. Journal of the American Statistical Association 79(388): 871-880.

Rousseeuw PJ, Yohai VJ. 1984. Robust regression by means of S-estimators. In Robust and Nonlinear Time Series (Franke J, Härdle W, and Martin D). Lecture Notes in Statistics 26: 256-272.

Rousseeuw PJ, Leroy MA. 1987. Robust Regression and Outlier Detection. John Wiley & Sons: New York, NY.

Rousseeuw PJ, and Croux C. 1993. Alternatives to the median absolute deviation. Journal of the American Statistical Association 88(24): 1273-1283.

Vandegrift D, Yoked T. 2004. Obesity rates, income, and suburban sprawl: an analysis of US states. Health and Place 10(3): 221-9.

Yohai VJ. 1987. High breakdown-point and high efficiency robust estimates for regression. Annals of Statistics 15(2): 642-656.

Zaman A, Rousseeuw PJ, Orhan M. 2001. Econometric applications of high-breakdown robust regression techniques. Economics Letters 71(1): 1-8.

Zhao Z, Kaestner R. 2010. Effects of urban sprawl on obesity. Journal of Health Economics 29: 779-787.