Access to fast food outlets and body weight in European adults

In a paper just published in the journal 'Environment and Behaviour' we examined explanatory pathways for the association between spatial access to fast food outlets and body weight in 5,076 European adults (18+) in different urban regions across Europe. Dr. Joreintje Mackenbach is first author on this paper, and we made use of the data from the Spotlight project. The total association of spatial access to fast food outlets with self-reported weight status was examined and in the analyses we took possible clustering at the neighborhood level into account. We also explored if the association between spatial access and body weight was mediated by perceived availability and usage of fast food outlets, and self-reported fast food consumption. We further explored if the associations were different according to age, gender, socioeconomic status, and urban region.
Objective spatial access to fast food outlets was not significantly related to weight status. Spatial access to fast food outlets was associated with perceptions about presence of fast food outlets and usage of fast food outlets, and this was in turn associated with greater reported fast food consumption and unhealthier weight status.