Access and quality of parks and associations with obesity: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Public health is increasingly engaging with multi-faceted obesity prevention efforts. Although parks represent key community assets for broader public health, they may not be distributed equitably and associations with obesity are equivocal. We investigated park access and quality relative to deprivation and obesity with individual-level data from the Yorkshire Health Study. Compared to the least deprived areas, the moderately and most deprived areas had a greater park access and park quality in terms of features and amenities. However, parks in the moderately and most deprived areas also had the most safety concerns and incivilities. Although deprivation was associated with obesity, contrary to current policy guidance, both park access and quality appear less important for understanding variations in obesity within this study. Although sub-group analyses by deprivation tertile revealed that low quality park amenities in highly and moderately deprived areas may be important for understanding obesity prevalence, all other associations were non-significant.

The Moderating Role of Social Neighbourhood Factors in the Association between Features of the Physical Neighbourhood Environment and Weight Status

“…Our finding, also shown previously [10, 23, 31], that the presence of recreational facilities was not associated with body weight can be due to the fact that recreational leisure time only constitutes a small part of total physical activity, thereby having limited effects on body weight. In contrast to our findings, previous studies have shown that poor neighbourhood aesthetics and aspects of the food environment were associated with increased obesity risk [5, 9, 32, 33].…”

“…It is important to investigate this interplay because it may be that positive social factors help overcome the negative influences of less favourable physical environments, that both a positive physical and social environment are required for maintaining a healthy weight status, or that certain physical environmental aspects are especially important for some social groups. For example, one study found that residents with access to parks and who lived in moderately or highly deprived areas were more likely to be obese compared to residents living in less deprived areas with park access [23]. …”

“…However, to our knowledge, only one study to date has investigated the interactions between the physical and social neighbourhood factors in relation to body weight in adults [23]. The scientific value of investigating both physical and social factors together is to unfold the interacting effects through which the environment influences health behaviours as hypothesised by socio-ecological models [22].…”

Variation in the physical activity environment according to area‐level socio‐economic position—A systematic review

“…There were 29 included papers from the United States ; seven from Australia; six from England; five from Scotland; three from Germany; two from each New Zealand, Spain, and Canada; and one each from France, Portugal, and Denmark (Figure ).…”

“…Six of the seven Australian papers used the census‐based Socio‐Economic Index for Areas (SEIFA) measures, while the other measured the percentage of the population on an income of under $21 000. Both New Zealand papers used the New Zealand Index of Deprivation, while papers published in Scotland used the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, or Carstairs Deprivation Score, and English papers used the Index of Multiple Deprivation . Other European studies used the European Deprivation Index, the proportion of population receiving social welfare, aggregate levels of education or income level, or aggregate indices created from multiple SEP variables .…”