Associations between the combined physical activity environment, socioeconomic status, and obesity: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

14Aims: This study investigates associations between the combined PA environment and obesity and 15 explores any sub-group effects by individual-level socioeconomic status. 17Methods: In a large cross-sectional cohort (n=22,889) from the Yorkshire Health Study, body mass 18 index (BMI) was calculated using self-reported height and weight and obesity was defined as a BMI≥30. 19The PA environment was split into "unfavourable PA", "moderately favourable PA" and, "favourable PA" 20 environments. This was based on the count of parks and PA facilities within a 2km radial buffer cantered 21 on home addresses. A favourable PA environment was defined as having ≥1 PA facility and ≥1 park, 22unfavourable as having no PA facility and park and any other combinations, defined as moderately 23 favourable. Logistic regression (odds ratios (OR)) identified associations with obesity. 25Results: Relative to "Unfavourable PA environments", individuals within favourable PA environments 26were less likely to be obese (OR=0.90; 95%CI 0.82-0.97) yet there was no effect for moderately 27 favourable environment. Furthermore, once stratified by education level, this relationship was only 28 present for those of higher education. 30Conclusion: Our findings provide novel UK evidence and is one of the first papers internationally that

Examining longitudinal associations between the recreational physical activity environment, change in body mass index, and obesity by age in 8864 Yorkshire Health Study participants

“…While effects in this study were small they indicated that the association between PA facilities, parks and change in obesity differed by age. Consequently, such conclusions support previous evidence which suggests that the physical environment may matter more for some populations, than others (Burgoine et al, 2016;Burgoine et al, 2017;Hobbs et al, 2017b). Understanding how different population groups may respond to different policies is an important future direction for both researchers and policy makers.…”

“…For instance, an increased level of green space within 125m of a home has been shown to be associated with increased odds of obesity (Picavet et al, 2016). There is some evidence that combinations of environmental attributes may be more strongly associated with health-related outcomes than single attributes (Hobbs et al, 2017b;Whitfield et al, 2018). Consequently, a combined measure of the recreational PA environment and the addition of a longitudinal perspective may help uncover meaningful associations between the recreational PA environment and obesity.…”

Neighbourhood greenspace influences on childhood obesity in Sheffield, UK

“…Our selected indicators may have failed to capture the aspects of greenspace that are most relevant for health. Also, we have not tested for interactions between indicators (doing so would have proved computationally unfeasible using our multi‐model inference approach); this is important as, for example, socioeconomic status can alter the relationship between availability of resources for physical activity and obesity …”

Deprivation matters: understanding associations between neighbourhood deprivation, unhealthy food outlets, unhealthy dietary behaviours and child body size using structural equation modelling

“…It is also possible that loss of precision may have occurred through the transformation of neighbourhood deprivation from a continuous variable into the categorical variable deprivation tertiles. However, low, medium and high categories of deprivation are commonly used in the food environment literature43 44 and are particularly useful to make relative comparisons for policymakers and practitioners. While we build toward greater complexity, a better understanding of connections between neighbourhood deprivation and child poverty and body size are warranted in future research.…”