Living Near Junk Food May Make More NYC Kids Obese, Study Shows

NEW YORK — You are what you eat — and where you live. New York City kids who live near junk food purveyors are more likely to be obese than those farther away, a newly published study says.

Roughly one in five children and teens living within a half-block of a fast-food restaurant or bodega were obese — a rate that fell significantly among kids just a little farther away, NYU School of Medicine researchers found.

"Our study indicates that living very close to food outlets with a lot of unhealthy, junk food choices is likely not good for reducing the risk of children being overweight or obese," said Brian D. Elbel, the lead author of the study published Tuesday in the journal Obesity.

The researchers examined public school records of heights and weights for kindergartners through high-schoolers. They then used mapping software to compare that data with how far the children lived from sellers of both junk food and healthy eats, such as grocery stores, corner stores, fast-food joints and sit-down restaurants.

Some 20 percent of 5-to-18-year-olds living within half a block of a fast-food eatery were obese and 38 percent were overweight, the study found. Among those living that close to a bodega or corner store, 21 percent were obese and 40 percent were overweight, according to researchers.

But obesity rates among kids living more than half a block from the nearest fast-food spot fell 2.5 to 4.4 percent, depending on the distance, the study shows. Kids farther from corner stores also saw their obesity rates drop as much as roughly 2.5 percent, according to the findings.

By contrast, researchers found children's proximity to sit-down restaurants and grocery stores did not heighten their risk of obesity.

"(O)ur work implies that for children, food outlets traditionally considered unhealthy are more influential aspects of the food environment than healthy food," the researchers wrote. "Most policies, in contrast, focus on outlets considered to sell healthier foods, namely supermarkets."

The study relied on more than 3.5 million observations of public school students' heights and weights from 2009 to 2013. The data analysis was "highly neighborhood-specific," meaning kids in a certain part of Harlem were compared only to kids in that same part of the neighborhood, according to a news release.

The researchers said there were some limitations to the study despite its large sample, such as a lack of data on food prices and the need for future examination of how school food affects kids' health.

But the findings could help policymakers adjust their approach to getting kids to eat healthier, researchers say.

"Our findings suggest that policy efforts to create a healthy food environment in close proximity to home could have small but potentially meaningful health implications for at least the subset of children who live very close to such establishments," the study says.