Fast food “clusters” seen around schools

By Anne Harding

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Most Chicago kids have a wide
array of fast food options waiting for them just a few minutes’
walk from school, a new study shows.

This means kids from kindergarten to high school have easy
access to high-fat, low-nutrition snacks and meals before,
after and even during school, Dr. S. Bryn Austin of Children’s
Hospital in Boston and her colleagues report. And it isn’t just
a Chicago problem, Austin told Reuters Health; she expects the
situation is similar in urban centers nationwide.

One third of children and teens eat fast food on any given
day, Austin and her colleagues note in the American Journal of
Public Health. “That’s a huge proportion of kids, and we know
that when children eat fast foods they’re getting more calories
and more fat, more added sugars and fewer fruits and
vegetables,” Austin said.

And kids are eating fast food much more often than they
used to; nearly 20 percent of calories that 12- to 18-year-olds
eat come from fast food, compared with 6.5 percent in the late
1970s.

Austin and her team used statistical methods to determine
if fast food restaurants are concentrated near schools in the
Chicago area. Their 2002 analysis included 1,292 schools and
613 fast food restaurants.

On average, schools were about 500 meters away from at
least one fast food restaurant. Thirty percent of schools had
at least one restaurant within 400 meters, an easy five-minute
walk, while 80 percent had one or more within 800 meters, or
about 10 minutes away on foot. Restaurants showed a three- to
four-fold greater concentration around schools than if they had
been randomly distributed.

The high concentration of fast food restaurants creates an
unhealthy food environment that schools and communities must
address, the researchers assert. Schools can help in many ways,
Austin told Reuters Health, for example by not allowing
students to bring fast food purchases onto school grounds, and
restricting the ability of students to leave the campus during
lunch. Municipal or state initiatives could also be undertaken
to help force fast food restaurants to offer healthier choices.

“What we need is to provide our children and provide our
students with more healthful and more affordable alternatives
to fast foods in our school neighborhoods,” Austin said. She
points to initiatives in some parts of the country where
schools contract with farmers to provide fresh vegetables,
fresh fruit and whole grains for student meals.

“As a community it’s our responsibility to take the food
environment seriously, especially in school neighborhoods,
because that’s an investment in our children’s health,” Austin
concluded.

SOURCE: American Journal of Public Health, September 2005.