Posted on 08/30/2007 4:38:04 PM PDT by blam
Source: University of Washington
Date: August 30, 2007
ZIP Codes And Property Values Predict Obesity Rates
Science Daily — Neighborhood property values predict local obesity rates better than education or incomes, according to a study from the University of Washington being published online recently by the journal Social Science and Medicine. For each additional $100,000 in the median price of homes, UW researchers found, obesity rates in a given ZIP code dropped by 2 percent.
The study, based on analyses of responses to a telephone survey conducted in King County by the local health department and the federal Centers for Disease Control, found six-fold disparities in obesity rates across the Seattle metropolitan area. Obesity rates reached 30 percent in the most deprived areas but were only around 5 percent in the most affluent ZIP codes.
"Obesity is an economic issue," said Dr. Adam Drewnowski, director of the UW Center for Obesity Research and leader of the study. "Knowing more about the geography of obesity will allow us to identify the most vulnerable neighborhoods."
Working with the local health agency, Public Health-Seattle & King County, the researchers aggregated multiple-year data from Washington state's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) to analyze data for more than 8,000 respondents. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention use the same data to map rising obesity rates in the United States at the state level. However, unlike most states, Washington codes the BRFSS data by the respondents' ZIP code, which permits more detailed analyses of local obesity rates at a finer geographic scale. Other information about the ZIP code areas was provided by data from the U.S. Census.
Residential property values were used as a proxy measure of ZIP code socioeconomic status. "Incomes are not the same as assets and wealth," said Drewnowski. "The chief financial asset for most Americans is their home."
Area prosperity can also be a good predictor of access to healthy foods, or opportunities for exercise.
The UW study was the first to examine obesity rates by area-based indexes of poverty and wealth across a metropolitan area. Previous studies have found higher obesity rates among racial and ethnic minorities and groups of lower education and incomes. Analyses of the same BRFSS data for King County showed that obesity rates were higher for African-Americans (26 percent) than for whites (16 percent), and were higher for people with annual incomes below $15,000 (20 percent) than for those with incomes above $50,000 (15 percent), all consistent with national trends. These disparities were much lower than those dependent on ZIP codes and geographic location. The study concluded that social and economic disparities were more important in predicting obesity than previously thought.
Well-known maps of rising obesity rates in the United States, also based on BRFSS data, showed only small differences among the poorest and the richest states.
"Those maps were used to support that argument that the obesity epidemic did not discriminate," said Drewnowski. "Our research shows that geography, social class, and economic standing all play huge roles in the obesity problem. Some of the most disadvantaged areas -- those hardest hit by low income, low education, and low property values -- are also the ones most affected by the obesity epidemic."
The study co-authors were Dr. David Solet, Epidemiology Unit, Seattle-King County Department of Public Health, and Colin Rehm, epidemiologist, Snohomish Health District, Snohomish County, Wash. The research was supported by the Roadmap grant from the National Institutes of Health, through the UW Center for Obesity Research.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of Washington.
Well not just free food perhaps but if you are poor, then you tend to eat things like Ramen Noodles, fatty hamburger, hot dogs etc.
Look, I didn’t mean to imply that some behaviors are benign or harmless. They are all bad, but some are more curable than others (over-eating vs. drug use).
Thanks ~ altho some may argue how easily ‘curable’ obesity is!
Food can be a mighty powerful drug. Hard to separate ‘hunger’ from ‘appetite’.
I respectfully submit that even WHEN it is affected by genetics, it remains a behavioral issue.
I am an alcoholic of the same Dr. Jeckyl - Mr. Hyde type as my grandfather. I am convinced that genetics play an enormous role in alcoholism, and that alcoholism is more like an allergy than a disease. Yet it remains a behavioral issue. Certain behaviors result in symptoms (starting fights and being arrested, in my case!), and a change in those behaviors results in total elimination of the "symptoms."
If alcoholism is a disease, it is entirely self-inflicted and self-cured, regardless of genetics. That's the hard, cold, ruthless reality. Accepting it is simple and true.
A mammal cannot manufacture fat out of zero input. Perhaps some bodies manufacture certains kinds of food much differently than other bodies, hence tending more toward obesity in one than in another. But I would bet you all the tea in China that if I was able to get one fat person, regardless of genetics, to duplicate my exercise and eating on a daily basis for one year, they would lose fat. It's a mathematical certainty.
It's all behavioral. It's just that individuals each have to tune their behavioral meters to widely varying norms. It's not fair, but nobody said life was fair.
What sounds better to me is a kind of "Salvation Army" rooted in nutrion rather than drug abuse! ;^)
Wow! What a great point!
Ah ... er ... I'd like to make a point. Environmental and species regulations along American coastlines -- regulations sadly supported by many short-sighted but earnest conservatives -- make it very close to impossible for our food stores to offer much domestic harvest. Think of that the next time you don't sit down to a nice big platter of abalone steaks. Or the next time the only fish you can find (let alone afford) is from Indonesia instead of the nearest coast.
You hit the nail right square on the head! Bravo!
Good insight. That really highlights the oddity -- we live in a country where malnutrition is a malady of the young, affluent and otherwise healthy, and the main nutritional problem of the poor is obesity.
Not another. A different. What I'm talking about is a fundamental rethinking of the government's approach to poverty -- initiatives that come from the ground up, rather than from social engineers in DC down. Something like, wait, I can't put my finger on it ...
What sounds better to me is a kind of "Salvation Army" rooted in nutrion rather than drug abuse! ;^)
Yeah, actually, very much like that. If communities can make it work without any government funds, so much the better; but I wouldn't have any objection to shifting government funds from programs that don't work to programs that do.
Churches, and synagogues are closer to the problem -- they're in and of the community, The creative and innovative solutions seem to come from there. For example, St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Atlanta has a great outreach program for the homeless - they don't have room to hose a shelter, but they offer storage lockers so folks can go to a shelter without worrying about being robbed. They have showers and laundry machines and donated presentable clothes.
And -- this is the part that I thought this part was especially clever, and obvious once I heard it, but I hadn't thought of it before: mailboxes. A tiny simple thing, but think about it -- how can you apply for aid, or a job, if you don't have an address where you can receive a reply?
It would have taken a government agency ten years and millions of dollars to come up with that. The church came up with it by being in the community (St. Luke's is downtown, in a neighborhood with one of the larger homeless populations) and, I'm guessing, from sitting down and talking to people.
The office of faith-based initiatives was kind of a nifty idea, but it seems to have been more of a political gesture than anything meaningful Change the name to the office of community-based initiatives, and bring in non-sectarian groups the Scouts, 4-H, Boys' and Girls' Clubs, and the YMCA (which despite the word "Christian" in its name, is pretty much non-sectarian in its present-day direction and role in the community)
Address today's problems, not the problems of 40 years ago. Shift resources from the programs that don't work to the programs that so -- for starters. If, by some miracle, the problems actually start to get solved, then you drop the funding altogether. I'm all or smaller government, but first Im for more effective and efficient government. When it can do more with less, it'll be easier to shrink it.
The government's approach to the "War on Poverty" is like using maps of Germany to plan the war in Iraq.
Those who move less are inclined to be fat.
There is a strong correlation between moving less and working less.
Most certainly.
It takes grit and maturity to overcome depression, fear and bad habits.
The more instant foods people use, the heavier they will be.
People need to take the time to cook using raw foods.
Cook in large quantities on the weekends and freeze in individual containers for lunches.
Money will be saved, raw foods are healthier and the body won’t be storing as much fat because no supplements can have the same affect as raw sources.
They are out there. The one’s who are really struggling are the working poor. They make too much money to qualify for help.
Proper money management and consistent, careful investment will lift anyone out of the hole. Sure it may take a bit longer but it works everytime.
Often times yes but then a lot of the people I’ve encountered had an unexpected medical issue or other legitimate reason for their circumstances. I work with Second Harvest through my church and see these people regularly.
Other studies have suggested that being overweight will cause you to earn less.
Such is the problem with correlation / causation.
This is all about DISCIPLINE and the lack of it.
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