Greater access to healthy food outlets in the home and school environment is associated with better dietary quality in young children
Greater access to healthy food outlets in the home and school environment is associated with better dietary quality in young children
To explore associations between dietary quality and access to different types of food outlets around both home and school in primary school-aged children.
Cross-sectional observational study.
Hampshire, UK.
Children (n 1173) in the Southampton Women’s Survey underwent dietary assessment at age 6 years by FFQ and a standardised diet quality score was calculated. An activity space around each child’s home and school was created using ArcGIS. Cross-sectional observational food outlet data were overlaid to derive four food environment measures: counts of supermarkets, healthy specialty stores (e.g. greengrocers), fast-food outlets and total number of outlets, and a relative measure representing healthy outlets (supermarkets and specialty stores) as a proportion of total retail and fast-food outlets.
In univariate multilevel linear regression analyses, better diet score was associated with exposure to greater number of healthy specialty stores (β=0·025 sd/store: 95 % CI 0·007, 0·044) and greater exposure to healthy outlets relative to all outlets in children’s activity spaces (β=0·068 sd/10 % increase in healthy outlets as a proportion of total outlets, 95 % CI 0·018, 0·117). After adjustment for mothers’ educational qualification and level of home neighbourhood deprivation, the relationship between diet and healthy specialty stores remained robust (P=0·002) while the relationship with the relative measure weakened (P=0·095). Greater exposure to supermarkets and fast-food outlets was associated with better diet only in the adjusted models (P=0·017 and P=0·014, respectively).
The results strengthen the argument for local authorities to increase the number of healthy food outlets to which young children are exposed.
3316-3325
Barrett, Millie
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Crozier, Sarah
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Lewis, Daniel
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Godfrey, Keith
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Robinson, Sian
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Cooper, Cyrus
e05f5612-b493-4273-9b71-9e0ce32bdad6
Inskip, Hazel
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Baird, Janis
f4bf2039-6118-436f-ab69-df8b4d17f824
Vogel, Christina
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December 2017
Barrett, Millie
d27de185-a092-4a5e-b3c0-6741f486b8b3
Crozier, Sarah
9c3595ce-45b0-44fa-8c4c-4c555e628a03
Lewis, Daniel
e4012b77-3224-472f-a05d-98a0fbd9a4d1
Godfrey, Keith
0931701e-fe2c-44b5-8f0d-ec5c7477a6fd
Robinson, Sian
ba591c98-4380-456a-be8a-c452f992b69b
Cooper, Cyrus
e05f5612-b493-4273-9b71-9e0ce32bdad6
Inskip, Hazel
5fb4470a-9379-49b2-a533-9da8e61058b7
Baird, Janis
f4bf2039-6118-436f-ab69-df8b4d17f824
Vogel, Christina
768f1dcd-2697-4aae-95cc-ee2f6d63dff5
Barrett, Millie, Crozier, Sarah, Lewis, Daniel, Godfrey, Keith, Robinson, Sian, Cooper, Cyrus, Inskip, Hazel, Baird, Janis and Vogel, Christina
(2017)
Greater access to healthy food outlets in the home and school environment is associated with better dietary quality in young children.
Public Health Nutrition, 20 (18), .
(doi:10.1017/S1368980017002075).
Abstract
To explore associations between dietary quality and access to different types of food outlets around both home and school in primary school-aged children.
Cross-sectional observational study.
Hampshire, UK.
Children (n 1173) in the Southampton Women’s Survey underwent dietary assessment at age 6 years by FFQ and a standardised diet quality score was calculated. An activity space around each child’s home and school was created using ArcGIS. Cross-sectional observational food outlet data were overlaid to derive four food environment measures: counts of supermarkets, healthy specialty stores (e.g. greengrocers), fast-food outlets and total number of outlets, and a relative measure representing healthy outlets (supermarkets and specialty stores) as a proportion of total retail and fast-food outlets.
In univariate multilevel linear regression analyses, better diet score was associated with exposure to greater number of healthy specialty stores (β=0·025 sd/store: 95 % CI 0·007, 0·044) and greater exposure to healthy outlets relative to all outlets in children’s activity spaces (β=0·068 sd/10 % increase in healthy outlets as a proportion of total outlets, 95 % CI 0·018, 0·117). After adjustment for mothers’ educational qualification and level of home neighbourhood deprivation, the relationship between diet and healthy specialty stores remained robust (P=0·002) while the relationship with the relative measure weakened (P=0·095). Greater exposure to supermarkets and fast-food outlets was associated with better diet only in the adjusted models (P=0·017 and P=0·014, respectively).
The results strengthen the argument for local authorities to increase the number of healthy food outlets to which young children are exposed.
Text
SWSActivitySpaceDietpublication_notrack07062017F
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 4 July 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 31 August 2017
Published date: December 2017
Organisations:
Human Development & Health, Medical Research Council
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 412038
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/412038
ISSN: 1368-9800
PURE UUID: c98a3b74-c467-417e-a3df-1e3f14e19bd9
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Date deposited: 05 Jul 2017 16:31
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 05:09
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Author:
Millie Barrett
Author:
Daniel Lewis
Author:
Sian Robinson
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