The RECORD Cohort Study in the American Journal of Epidemiology

In this article, Cinira Lefèvre examined whether different characteristics of the physical environment, service environment, and social-interactional environment were associated with the body mass index and waist circumference of the RECORD participants

The analyses suggest that, beyond socioeconomic characteristics of individuals and of their residential neighborhood, waist circumference was larger among participants residing in a neighborhood with a low building density, and where the densities of fruit and vegetable shops and restaurants (full service and fastfoods) and density of destinations were weak. Overall, the likelihood of excess fat was higher in non-dense neighborhoods.

However, analyses based on innovative approaches revealed that it is difficult to disentangle the effects of the different characteristics of the physical and service environment on excess body weight and fat, especially when these environmental factors are related to densities that are highly correlated with each others.

We therefore found it more reliable to only conclude to the existence of an overall protective effect of high densities in general.

The article can be downloaded here.