Planning policies to restrict the number of new fast-food outlets leads to fewer overweight and obese children according to research led by Lancaster University. Researchers examined the impact of policy in the North East of England where Gateshead Council prevented any existing non-fast-food commercial property from being converted into a hot fast-food takeaway. The lead authors of the study, published in the journal Obesity, are Dr Huasheng Xiang from Lancaster University Management School and Professor of Health Inequalities Heather Brown from the Faculty of Health and Medicine at Lancaster University.
The researchers used Government collected data that included: children's weight from the National Child Measurement Programme, Food Hygiene Ratings from the Food Standards Agency, and deprivation and population measures from the Office of National Statistics. They also assessed Gateshead neighbourhoods with comparable areas across the North East. Across the whole borough they found no significant change in childhood overweight and obesity between Gateshead and the areas of comparison.
However, when they looked at neighbourhood deprivation, they found that, in those areas with the highest proportion of fast-food outlets, the Gateshead neighbourhoods were associated with a statistically significant reduction in the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity in comparison with corresponding neighbourhoods in the North East. In sub-group analysis by area level deprivation, t.
