July 30, 2008 -- People consider many things in choosing a neighborhood -- schools for their children, commuting distance, and what type of house they want -- but another factor might be worth factoring in: picking the right neighborhood may affect your waistline.
That's the conclusion of researchers from the University of Utah who calculated the body mass index (BMI) using driver license information for more than 450,000 people in Salt Lake County, Utah, and compared it with information about the individuals' neighborhoods gathered from census information.
The researchers found that the older the house people lived in, the less likely they were to be obese. Women's risk of obesity declined by about 8 percent for every 10 years older her house was, and men's risk dropped by 13 percent.
Of course there's no magic weight loss dust in old houses. Rather, it's the lifestyle that comes with older homes that counts.
"It's a great proxy for so many things, mainly the neighborhood being built with the pedestrian in mind instead of the car," said study author Ken Smith.
Older neighborhoods tend to have sidewalks, shade, houses oriented toward the front of the house, and porches, he said. "If you're contemplating walking, it will be pleasant, shady, and there's a human interaction factor."
"The other element is that older neighborhoods also tend to have places to walk to," he added.
But randomly assigning people to an older neighborhood would not necessarily get them to drop weight. People in older neighborhoods may weigh less because more active people choose to live in neighborhoods that allow them to pursue that lifestyle.
"People who love to ride bikes and jog are going to move into neighborhoods that allow them to do that," Smith said.
Lawrence Frank of the University of British Columbia has tried to determine whether people living in more walkable neighborhoods weigh less because of the neighborhood itself or because active people choose such neighborhoods.
"The evidence is inconclusive," he told Discovery News. But, he said, "If you are someone who prefers to be in a more walkable environment and you don't live in one, you don't walk as much. The built environment is an enabler."
Smith's team looked at other measures of a neighborhood's walkability such as the population density, how interconnected the streets are, and how many people walk to work.
Combining the measures, they concluded that a hypothetical six-foot, 200-pound man living in the least walkable neighborhood would weigh 10 pounds more than his counterpart in the most walkable neighborhood. A five-foot, five-inch woman at 149 pounds would weigh 6 pounds less in the most walkable neighborhood than in the least walkable neighborhood.
The researchers compiled their results in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
"The paper reinforces what we already know with a large sample size," Frank said.
"We know there is an unmet demand for more walkable places," he added.
Related Links:
Jessica Marshall's blog: EnvironMental Case
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