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Urban sprawl and risk for being overweight or obese
1Department of Environmental Health, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02118, USA. rptlopez@bu.edu
Objectives:
I examined the association between urban sprawl and the risk for being overweight or obese among US adults.
Methods:
A measure of urban sprawl in metropolitan areas was derived from the 2000 US Census; individual-level data were obtained from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. I used multilevel analysis to assess the association between urban sprawl and obesity.
Results:
After I controlled for gender, age, race/ethnicity, income, and education, for each 1-point rise in the urban sprawl index (0-100 scale), the risk for being overweight increased by 0.2% and the risk for being obese increased by 0.5%.
Conclusions:
The current obesity epidemic has many causes, but there is an association between urban sprawl and obesity.
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