In the United States, obesity rates are a significant public health concern, prompting discussions around “food deserts” and the density of fast-food outlets in residential areas. While these factors are important, groundbreaking research from Northeastern University suggests a shift in perspective is needed when we consider our fast food consumption. It turns out, the issue isn’t solely about the Fast Food Nearby your home, but rather the food environments we encounter throughout our daily routines.
Professor Esteban Moro from Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute highlights a crucial insight: “Most of the fast food in this country is consumed far away from home.” This revelation challenges the conventional focus on residential neighborhoods and suggests that to effectively address unhealthy eating habits, we need to examine our food choices when we are out and about.
The study, titled “Effect of mobile food environments on fast food visits” and published in Nature Communications, delves into mobility data from 11 major American cities. Researchers analyzed 62 million anonymized visits to fast-food locations and uncovered some surprising patterns.
A key finding was the average distance people traveled for fast food compared to groceries. The study revealed that individuals travel an average of 4.3 miles to get fast food, more than double the 2 miles traveled for grocery shopping. This significant difference underscores that fast-food consumption isn’t primarily driven by immediate residential proximity. Interestingly, the research also debunked the assumption that fast food consumption is linked to specific socioeconomic groups, indicating it’s a broader societal pattern.
Professor Moro explains, “Thus, food choice is influenced by the food environments people are exposed to as they move through their daily routines, mostly far away from home.” This means our susceptibility to fast food isn’t just about what’s fast food nearby our houses, but what’s available and tempting during our commutes, workdays, and errands.
The study further quantified this environmental influence. Researchers discovered that simply being in areas with a 10% higher density of fast-food outlets increased the probability of consuming fast food by a significant 20%. This strong correlation suggests that the more fast-food options we encounter in our daily travels, the more likely we are to indulge.
This data visualization of Boston highlights the concentration of fast food visits in the downtown area, reinforcing the idea that consumption is tied to mobile environments rather than just residential areas.
Researchers Abigail Horn and Kayla de la Haye from USC, co-authors of the study, point out the limitations of current policy interventions. Efforts to combat “food deserts” and “food swamps” have largely concentrated on residential areas. Despite significant investments and initiatives like fast-food bans in Los Angeles, studies have shown these approaches to be largely ineffective in curbing obesity rates. This ineffectiveness suggests that focusing solely on the fast food nearby residential areas misses a crucial part of the picture.
So, where should interventions focus instead? Moro and his colleagues propose targeting locations that meet three key criteria: places with high volumes of food purchasing decisions, areas saturated with fast food compared to healthier alternatives, and locations where people’s food choices are most easily swayed by the surrounding food environment.
He offers the example of an airport terminal. Airports are high-traffic locations where many people need to eat, fast-food options are abundant, and travelers are often limited to the available choices within security. This makes airports, and similar transit hubs, prime locations for intervention.
This graphic illustrates how targeted interventions, like those in transit hubs, can effectively change fast food consumption patterns, showing reductions spread across various locations including the airport.
Moro states that strategically targeting these optimal locations could yield interventions that are two to four times more effective than traditional approaches focused on residential food deserts or swamps. Beyond airports, other potential intervention zones include shopping centers, office parks, and transportation hubs – places where large numbers of people make food decisions outside their home environments.
“What we found is everybody’s consuming fast food,” concludes Moro. “And the environment we are exposed to is conditioning the food that we eat.” This research underscores the importance of considering our “mobile food environments” and rethinking strategies to promote healthier eating beyond just addressing the fast food nearby our homes.
