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Mapping Neighborhood-Level Obesity in the United States
- tyh 11y agoMy cursory glance seems to suggest higher obesity neighborhoods tend to be lower income ones. Though that observation is completely anecdotal based on my life experiences living in different parts of the country.
- onion2k 11y agoIt'd be easy plot income levels on the same map to see how the two correlate. It'd be interesting to plot other things like branches of chain restaurants, proximity to gyms, etc too.
- sageabilly 11y agoYeah, that divide is extremely well delineated in DC, in an incredibly freaky way. Although I was quite interested to see the diversity of the pixelation in Great Falls which is one of the wealthiest areas of Fairfax County/ DC Suburbs. I suppose if you're really really rich you either take great pains to be in incredible shape or you just let yourself go completely.
- divers1776 11y agoI noticed the exact same thing!
- alistairSH 11y agoI just noticed the same (and made a similar comment in response elsewhere).
- reedk 11y agoThe USDA made a neighborhood-level map of "food deserts"-- communities where a significant portion of residents do not have easy access to large grocery stores and healthy food options. http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/fooddesert/ http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/fooddesert/ It would be interesting to see the two maps layered.
- nrjames 11y agoHere's a direct link to the tool instead of to an article about it: http://synthpopviewer.rti.org/obesity/viewer.html http://synthpopviewer.rti.org/obesity/viewer.html
- calebm 11y agoI just ate a full meal from McDonalds this week for the first time in a while, and realized that I ate around 1000 calories, and was still a little hungry. This was really surprising, since 500 calories of healthy food can make me feel full.
- noir_lord 11y agoNot that surprising tbh, Satiation isn't directly dependent on calories consumed but on various markers such as chewing, pressure on stomach wall and certain chemical responses. Junkfood short circuits most of these, it's incredibly calorie dense and is easy to eat quickly since it requires little chewing, by the time your body signals satiation you can easily consume 1300 calories or more. I've been on a calories restriced diet for the last 4 months (1500 or less a day) and I've eaten a few times at McDonalds, I just get a quarter pounder (higher meat to carb ratio, meat increases satiety more than carbs per gram) and a diet coke and then eat is in small bites and chew it thoroughly, by the time I'm done I feel the same satiation as I would have done bolting down a big mac and fries previously. So far I'm down 45lbs with another 10 or so to go.
- cabbeer 11y agoIt's because of all the 'empty calories'.
- gorena 11y agoAssuming the full meal was a burger, there's basically no fiber. "Healthy food" tends to mean something including a bunch of vegetables, which are full of fiber
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pseudometa 11y agoI get the feeling they could simply interchange income maps for obesity maps and no one would know which is which.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoSo often these maps turn out to be population-density heatmaps. Do we know that is not the case here? Ah, thanks nrjames, that page says its percent obesity within each grid cell. So not a population heatmap.
- dougmccune 11y agomy anecdotal look at the bay area is inline with the grandparent comment, this seems to be basically a poverty map. I'm sure you could find places that has strange discrepancies where obesity and poverty don't directly correlate, but my guess is that in general they do pretty closely.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoPoverty may correlate with historical cultural makeup. And culture historically correlates strongly with genes. And genes are largely responsible for obesity. Its complicated to be sure!
- emddudley 11y agoGenetics certainly contribute to obesity, but they aren't typically a primary factor, are they? Surely diet, exercise, and lifestyle are far more relevant. These are directly impacted by poverty.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoIn some population genetics is a strong driver of obesity. Pacific Islanders, Inuit, some Aboriginal America groups come to mind. Any isolated place experiencing periodic famine, supports genes to hoard calories.
- jws 11y agoIn rural areas, the neighborhood squares cover individual houses. I'm seeing some where my daughter lives that cover individual people. They seem accurate, the blues and reds live next door to each other.
- awjr 11y agoWould be better to analyse other factors over the top of these. Income I guess is obvious, however transport probably is significant. Can you cycle/walk/get good public transport? What about topography?
- nrjames 11y agoIf you click through to the "SYNTHPOPVIEWER," you can see other factors on a similar map, but not overlaid. http://synthpopviewer.rti.org http://synthpopviewer.rti.org
- ticktocktick 11y agoThis map follows the income distribution in my area very closely. Neat, but sad.
- pnathan 11y agoInteresting. My read on this map is that it also tracks the urban/non-urban breakdown very neatly: as you get out of the urban code, obesity %s increase dramatically.
- davidw 11y agoThere seems to be some kind of 'periphery' effect too, in places: zoom in on Portland, Oregon, and it sort of looks like there's a red ring around the town. I could see it being a 'rural' thing, but the ring is weird.
- nrjames 11y agoThat could just be from gentrification pushing lower income people out of the city center. Similar things have happened in DC, Chicago, etc. This Wired article shows some of that effect. http://www.wired.com/2013/08/how-segregated-is-your-city-this-eye-opening-map-shows-you/ http://www.wired.com/2013/08/how-segregated-is-your-city-thi...
- pnathan 11y agoI don't think so, at least in Seattle. Looking at the city breakdown, it corresponds to transit coverage and (my perception) transit friendliness. It actually seems to correspond inversely against income, since the transit coverage is vaguely inverse with Seattle income. This is, by the way, a strong conflict with East Coast cities in the US, where there's a decided "obese area" visible. I don't have insight into those from the ground level.
- pnathan 11y agoYou can see it all over the Western us. Super fascinating.
- frankus 11y agoIt might be effect of people who have to drive for most trips, versus those who can walk or bike (alone or in combination with transit) to at least a few destinations. That sort of access also makes those places more desirable, and thus more expensive, and thus more likely to be populated by rich people.
- kristopolous 11y agoIn Los Angeles, it maps out to ethnicity pretty nicely. I don't know why, I wouldn't think it would, but it clearly does.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoYeah, even more so than income. It is kinda weird that way.
- kristopolous 11y agoThe only thing I can think of is vestigial cultural rules being a determining factor; what you eat, when, how much - what your hobbies tend to be, how much you move in life. Every individual of course sets his or her own path, but populations taken as a whole seem to exhibit dominant patterns.
- minority-one 11y agoSo the only thing you can think of to explain this is cultural factor? You don't think genetics could be a factor here at all?
- kristopolous 11y agoSorry. I claim zero knowledge of epidemiological obesity studies or theories. In retrospect, it was not my place to conjecture at all --- I really don't know anything about this. Although for a thoughtful and thorough analysis: An introductory wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_obesity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_obesity Google scholar search: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=epidemiological+obesity https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=epidemiological+obesity
- steego 11y agoIt maps out ethnicity in nearly every metro and even suburban area I can see.
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- kelukelugames 11y agoHow do we fix food deserts? I have no idea but I wish we could solve it. If I was a billionaire I would subsidize running Whole Foods in impoverished neighborhoods.
- cpursley 11y agoA big misconception about fixing food deserts is that if we could "just add healthy options", the problem would be solved. But it's not that simple ~ it's an education and cultural issue. Where I live has a lot of red dots on this map and is not considered a food desert, I've got several grocery options. The issue is folks here are deeply steeped in modern southern food culture (fried on top of fried everything. all white bread and meat. very few vegetables, if any) combined with low income and education. They simply don't want to eat "rabbit food" (I'm quoting from actual conversations). Suggest anything different to them and they are offended. My (obese with numerous health issues) neighbors think my wife and I are "libruls" because we eat normally. It's a whole different mindset that you must empathize with and understand before talking about how to fix it.
- minority-one 11y agoWow, there's a ton of condescension and prejudice in your reply. First of all, if anything needs to be fixed about the diet you described, it's eating less. I am not young and all my life the only vegetable (including fruit) that I ate was french fries, and to this day if I lift my arm you can see my rib-cage; so it's not the food that is making the people you described "fat", and they don't need to start eating "rabbit food" to "fix it". And whether you eat "rabbit food" does not make you more or less "normal" than other people. Humans are omnivores, we each choose what we want to eat and bear the consequences. I have a close friend who is a personal trainer who also does not eat a single vegetable (nor fruit) and eats what you listed. He is very much in shape and his blood-work is "normal". I don't know what to tell you, but you're almost demonizing the food they're eating; if not, you certainly think there's something wrong with their choice of food. It could be that the specific choice is wrong (the quality of the meat and bread, for instance) but the general choice (meat and white bread) is not something that remotely has any correlation with the symptoms you wish to "fix". The fact you so hastily wish to fix something you don't fully understand is probably what is leading people to call you a "librul".
- gorena 11y agoWhere does the data come from? It doesn't say.
- jrin 11y agoDeveloper here, obesity is strongly correlated with race, ethnicity, educational attainment. So, yes, income and poverty play a key role, but are not the sole determinants of obesity. The obesity map doesn't look exactly like either a poverty map, or a race map, or an education map-- it's a synthesis of how those factors influence obesity. See the home page http://synthpopviewer.rti.org/obesity/ http://synthpopviewer.rti.org/obesity/ for additional background on how the data were created and be sure to look at layers depicting significant clustering of the results.
- dougmccune 11y agoThanks for that writeup link, that's really helpful in understanding what you've done. So everyone saying how the map correlates with various socio-economic factors is right (in various ways) because the obesity determination is entirely derived from socio-economic variables. That makes sense, but it wasn't clear until I read the writeup you posted that that's what we're looking at.
- pccheck 11y agoDis is racis