Does living close to fast food restaurants make you fat?

A new study from Lund University in Sweden has shown no correlation between obesity and how close you live to fast food restaurants or gyms.

Studies from other countries have previously indicated that these factors may be important in adult obesity.

The areas where we live are known to be important for our health.

For example, obesity is more prevalent in deprived neighbourhoods. Deprived neighbourhoods are typically defined by low socio-economic levels, e.g., low average income and high unemployment rates.

The reason why obesity is more prevalent in such neighbourhoods have been a topic of interest among both researchers and policy makers for a long time, and commercial facilities, like fast food outlets and physical activity facilities, have attracted much research attention and debate.

"However, our large-scale study in Sweden, using longitudinal national registry data of more than 1.5 million adults, did not find a statistically significant association between these two types of facilities and obesity," explained Kenta Okuyama, a PhD student at Lund University.

The researchers say it is unlikely that the availability of fast food outlets or lack of gyms are causes of obesity.

The study did show a correlation between neighbourhood deprivation and obesity.

How many fast food restaurants do you live near?

11 comments

I have a Maccas, Dominoes, Subway, fish & chips & Noodle shop within 1 km radius and I rarely go to any of them. I prefer home cooked food.

The first question put was "Does living close to fast food restaurants make you fat?" and then we read an article which categorically shows that the answer is a resounding "NO!" The penultimate paragraph is misleading because it doesn't show any link to neighbourhood deprivation and obesity having anything to do with fast food outlests. Come on Ben, you can do better than this.

""Does living close to fast food restaurants make you fat?"

Only if you are constantly buying and eating it! Strangely, you do not absorb calories through your skin, nor do you breathe them in.

How much was paid for this useless bit of nonsence research? But is yet another example of poor headlines and reporting by YLC.

 

“Strangely, you do not absorb calories through your skin, nor do you breathe them in.” (KSS)

That may not be the case.  A new study out of the University of California, Berkeley, and published in Cell Metabolism found that one's sense of smell is linked to weight gain. The study says it is possibly related to the way your body stores or burns fat.

How many times have people declared.. “all I have to do is smell food and I gain weight”, might be truer than they think! The researchers believe the results of this study could be very beneficial for future weight control research, if they can find a way to safely wipe out an obese person’s sense of smell for a few months, teach them a new way of living then rewire their metabolic program.

Apparently some people exposed to Cavid19 loose their sense of smell

.. the researchers could try that

The reason they lose their sense of smell is because they are too intent trying to draw a  breath to stay alive!

 

Is that why people that buy hot dogs and onions at Bunnings always appear overweight?  The onions smell good but in all the years I have shopped at Bunnings I have never eaten there.

Oh yes we live close by, together with KFC, Krispy Kreme & Macs. We don't visit any of them either!  Now if we lived near Miss Mauds that may be a different kettle of fish!

 

If you are unfortunate enough to live near to places that sell this stuff, it's not rocket science - you will get fat. the smell of frying onions pull you in, then you are among a lot of overweight people, you get lost in a crowd of fat, little wonder, one in every American is obese.

 

The WORST Fast Food Places Have Been Revealed - Editor Choice

I live within a very short distance of a myriad of fast food venues on the GC, QLD ... never visit any of them.

Maybe this is around the wrong way.  The fast food people may establish outlets where the customers are - the ones that love fast food and may therefore be obese.  Same with gyms of course - opened where the people keen on fitness are.

 

You are quite right Keith

The fast food people may establish outlets where the lazy people live ..areas of generations of unemployed.

Or large shopping Centres would be more like it, especially where there are a lot of interaction with teenagers and bus routes.

But the answer the question 'does living near a fast food restaurants make you fat'?  I think that depends on the individual.

We don't like fast foods and have to eat freshly cooked foods, so all the food consumption we have is made in our kitchen by me as my husband is having chemo.

I have seen people use a lot of the drive in outlets to buy take aways so they must be coming a distance if they drive their cars for food.  Considering the wear and tear of their vehicle and the fuel it uses to get to the take aways and then drive home.

There is also another thought, some restaurants are now including delivery free if you spend a certain amount of money.

Kar Marx

Are you suggesting that obese people should receive $20 thousand dollars for reporting the restaurants like the sexually abused get ???

I have many but my health is more important. I am hanging out for the gym to reopen....I think people forget about Micheal Moores study in supersize me 1 & 2, and films like that sugar film where Damien went from a vegan diet to a diet supposedly full of food labelled as @Helath Foods' by so called expo's. He very quickly got ill, lethargic, no focus or energy and prooved that the average diet contains 40 teaspoons of sugar or more by eating so called health foods. There'a another one called sweet poison which shows how the food industry puts sugar in everything and gets us addicted. Its no wonder that illness is the normal homeostatis now. 

 

Not only does the health industry put sugar and salt in everything ... they are allowed to put a star health system of suggesting it is healthy ?

   Chia Omega-3 Wholemeal Block Loaf | Bakers Delight causing confusion among consumers.

I live very close to numerous fast food outlets, but I don't eat their food because I don't like it. I make nearly everything from scratch. But I can still put on weight, because overeating even healthy food makes you put on weight. You just have to know when to stop. I started baking biscuits since Covid started just for something to do, but that didn't last long because I started gaining weight. Now I eat a little fruit instead. 
Actually I don't find fast food particularly fast because you've either got to go out for it and wait, or order it online, and wait. Considering that I can whip up a great meal in under fifteen minutes, why would I bother with fast food?

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