Fewer fast-food restaurants could mean fewer obese children.
A new study published Wednesday in the journal Obesity showed how limiting the number of new fast-food outlets in Gateshead has directly affected the prevalence of obesity among children in the North East England town.
In 2015, the Gateshead Council introduced a planning guideline that banned new fast-food restaurants in the area, reducing the proportion of outlets by 14%. The move was in response to the growing rate of childhood obesity in the borough, higher than the average national level, a report by the National Institute for Health and Care Research noted.
Researchers from Lancaster University reviewed data gathered over the years and compared it with neighborhoods nearby. They found that while there was no significant change in childhood overweight and obesity when compared to other control areas, an analysis by area-level deprivation showed that those in town with the highest number of fast-food saw a significant reduction in the child obesity rate by 4.8%.
"Given that a majority of local authorities in England have implemented planning policies that target hot food takeaways, if these are like Gateshead’s and are suitably robust and restrictive, it is possible that they could contribute to our efforts to reduce childhood overweight and obesity," said Heather Brown, professor of Health Inequalities at Lancaster University and the study's lead author.
Obesity has been a disease plaguing children worldwide. Data from the World Health Organization shows at least 37 million children under the age of 5 are overweight.
In the US, one in six youth are obese, the State of Childhood Obesity noted.
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