Obesity bigger issue in NY's poor areas
Source: Agencies |
March 4, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
NEW York City's obesity rate has climbed in recent years, but with lower income neighborhoods hit hardest while wealthier areas like Manhattan's Upper East Side and Chelsea remain slim, a new study found.
Researchers from New York University and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, found between 2003 and 2007, the prevalence of obesity citywide increased to 22 percent from 20 percent but with large variations in neighborhoods.
That was still lower than national and statewide rates, which stood at roughly 27 percent and 25 percent around the same time.
In richer areas, like the Upper East Side, Chelsea and the West Village, obesity rates hovered around 8 percent across the study that is published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
In contrast, obesity was a more common and growing problem in other city neighborhoods, many of which are lower-income.
In 2003, only one neighborhood, East Harlem, had an obesity rate higher than 30 percent. By 2007, six neighborhoods had joined it - three in the Bronx, the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, Rockaway in Queens and north Staten Island.
Researcher Dr Jennifer Black from the University of British Columbia said understanding neighborhood variations could help combat obesity as obesity rates balloon.
"But what this study does tell us is that substantial differences (in obesity) exist between neighborhoods with different levels of access to food and fitness amenities," said Black.
She said such neighborhood features remained linked to obesity even when researchers accounted for age, race and education levels.
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