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The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, aims to provide vital information for planning, implementing and evaluating interventions aimed at preventing childhood obesity in five New Jersey municipalities: Camden, Newark, New Brunswick, Trenton, and Vineland.
These five communities are being supported by RWJF's New Jersey Partnership for Healthy Kids program to plan and implement policy and environmental change strategies to prevent childhood obesity.
Effective interventions for addressing childhood obesity require community-specific information on who is most at risk and on contributing factors that can be addressed through tailored interventions that meet the needs of the community.
Using a comprehensive research study, the Center for State Health Policy at Rutgers University is working collaboratively with the State Program Office for New Jersey Partnership for Healthy I<ids and the five communities to address these information needs. The main components of the study include:
• A household survey of 1700 families with 3 -18 year old children
• De-identified heights and weights data from public school districts
• Assessment of the food and physical activity environments using objective data
Data books and maps based on the results of the study are being shared with the community coalitions in the five communities to help them plan their interventions.
Objectives: Conflicting findings on associations between food and physical activity (PA) environments and children's weight status demand attention in order to inform effective interventions. We assess relationships between the food and PA environments in inner-city neighborhoods and children's weight status and address sources of conflicting results of prior research.
Methods: Weight status of children ages 3-18 was assessed using parent-measured heights and weights. Data were collected from 702 children living in four low-income cities in New Jersey between 2009 and 2010. Proximity of a child's residence to a variety of food and PA outlets was measured in multiple ways using geo-coded data. Multivariate analyses assessed the association between measures of proximity and weight status.
Results: Significant associations were observed between children's weight status and proximity to convenience stores in the 1/4 mile radius (OR = 1.9) and with presence of a large park in the 1/2 mile radius (OR = 0.41). No associations were observed for other types of food and PA outlets.
Conclusions: Specific aspects of the food and PA environments are predictors of overweight and obese status among children, but the relationships and their detection are dependent upon aspects of the geospatial landscape of each community.